seek
Meaning
-
- To try to find; to look for; to search for.
- To ask for; to solicit; to beseech.
- To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.
- (obsolete) To go, move, travel (in a given direction).
- To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.
- To attempt, endeavour, try
- To navigate through a stream.
Frequency
Pronounced as (IPA)
/siːk/
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 West Frisian sykje, Dutch zoeken, Low German söken, German suchen, Danish søge, Icelandic sækja, Norwegian Bokmål søke, Norwegian Nynorsk søkja, Swedish söka. The Middle English and later Modern English hard /k/ derives from Old English sēcð, the third person singular; the forms with /k/ were then reinforced by cognate Old Norse sǿkja.
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