English Explanatory Dictionary

seek

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. To try to find; to look for; to search for.
  2. To ask for; to solicit; to beseech.
  3. To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.
  4. To go, move, travel (in a given direction).
  5. To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.
  6. To attempt, endeavour, try
  7. To navigate through a data stream.
noun
  1. The operation of navigating through a stream.
noun
  1. Obsolete form of Sikh.
name
  1. A surname from German.

Pronunciation

/ˈsiːk/ [ˈsɪi̯k] en-us-seek.ogg

Word forms

seek seeks seeking sought seeked no-table-tags glossary seekest soughtest seeketh seech seeke

Etymology

From Middle English seken (also sechen, whence dialectal English seech), from Old English sēċan (compare beseech); from Proto-West Germanic *sōkijan, from Proto-Germanic *sōkijaną (“to seek”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to seek out”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian säike (“to seek”), West Frisian sykje (“to seek”), Dutch zoeken (“to seek”), Low German söken (“to seek”), German suchen (“to seek”), Danish søge (“to seek”), Swedish söka, Norwegian Bokmål søke (“to seek”), Norwegian Nynorsk søkja (“to seek”), Icelandic sækja (“to seek”). The Middle English and later Modern English hard /k/ derives from Old English sēcð, the third person singular.

Synonyms

look for search for scrub

Related words

hide and seek seeker

Derived words

aseek attention-seeking beseek foreseek forseek hide and go seek hide and seek ideal-seeking behavior misseek north-seeking pole outseek rent seeking reseek seekable seek a knot in a bulrush seek and ye shall find seek for seek-no-further seek one's virtuous couch seek out seeksorrow seek time south-seeking pole underseek upseek
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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