Search - Definition

n 1: the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find
something or someone [syn: search, hunt, hunting]
2: an investigation seeking answers; "a thorough search of the
ledgers revealed nothing"; "the outcome justified the search"
3: an operation that determines whether one or more of a set of
items has a specified property; "they wrote a program to do a
table lookup" [syn: search, lookup]
4: the examination of alternative hypotheses; "his search for a
move that would avoid checkmate was unsuccessful"
5: boarding and inspecting a ship on the high seas; "right of
search"
v 1: try to locate or discover, or try to establish the
existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They
are searching for the missing man in the entire county"
[syn: search, seek, look for]
2: search or seek; "We looked all day and finally found the
child in the forest"; "Look elsewhere for the perfect gift!"
[syn: search, look]
3: inquire into; "the students had to research the history of
the Second World War for their history project"; "He searched
for information on his relatives on the web"; "Scientists are
exploring the nature of consciousness" [syn: research,
search, explore]
4: subject to a search; "The police searched the suspect"; "We
searched the whole house for the missing keys"