seek

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See also: Seek and s'eek

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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seek (third-person singular simple present seeks, present participle seeking, simple past and past participle sought)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To try to find; to look for; to search for.
    I seek wisdom.
    • 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:
      Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. […] A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.
    Synonyms: look for, search for
  2. (transitive) To ask for; to solicit; to beseech.
    I seek forgiveness through repentance.
  3. (transitive) To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.
    I sought my fortune on the goldfields.
    • 1880, George Q. Cannon, How the Gospel is Preached By the Elders, etc.:
      But persecution sought the lives of men of this character.
    • 1886, Constantine Popoff, translation of Leo Tolstoy's What I Believe:
      I can no longer seek fame or glory, nor can I help trying to get rid of my riches, which separate me from my fellow-creatures.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To go, move, travel (in a given direction).
  5. (transitive) To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.
    When the alarm went off I sought the exit in a panic.
  6. (intransitive, sometimes proscribed) To attempt, endeavour, try
    Our company does not seek to limit its employees from using the internet or engaging in social networking.
  7. (intransitive, computing) To navigate through a stream.
    Synonym: scrub
    • 2009, Jit Ghosh, Rob Cameron, Silverlight 2 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, page 541:
      Most of the changes made to this control are to accommodate the various constraints that playback of streaming media may impose in broadcast streams, such as the inability to seek through the media.

Usage notes

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  • The word is sometimes used to mean "try" or "want". This usage is criticized by Fowler in the entry "Formal Words".

Conjugation

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Conjugation of seek
infinitive (to) seek
present tense past tense
1st-person singular seek sought
2nd-person singular seek, seekest† sought, soughtest†
3rd-person singular seeks, seeketh† sought
plural seek
subjunctive seek sought
imperative seek —
participles seeking sought

†Archaic or obsolete.

Quotations

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For more quotations using this term, see Citations:seek.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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seek (plural seeks)

  1. (computing) The operation of navigating through a stream.
    • 2012, Aidong Zhang, Avi Silberschatz, Sharad Mehrotra, Continuous Media Databases, page 120:
      The number of seeks to retrieve a shot […] depends on the location of those frames on physical blocks.

Anagrams

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Estonian

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Estonian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia et

Etymology

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Borrowed from Middle Low German sêkhûs (“hospital”) (equivalent to sêk +‎ hûs). From Proto-West Germanic *seuk, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *seukaz (“sick”). Compare German Siechenhaus (“infirmary”), English sickhouse.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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seek (genitive seegi, partitive seeki)

  1. almshouse
    1. A residence and shelter for sick people in the Middle Ages.
    2. (colloquial) A nursing home, retirement home; poorhouse

Declension

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Declension of seek (ÕS type 22e/riik, k-g gradation)
singular plural
nominative seek seegid
accusative nom.
gen. seegi
genitive seekide
partitive seeki seeke
seekisid
illative seeki
seegisse 		seekidesse
seegesse
inessive seegis seekides
seeges
elative seegist seekidest
seegest
allative seegile seekidele
seegele
adessive seegil seekidel
seegel
ablative seegilt seekidelt
seegelt
translative seegiks seekideks
seegeks
terminative seegini seekideni
essive seegina seekidena
abessive seegita seekideta
comitative seegiga seekidega

References

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Limburgish

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Inherited from Proto-West Germanic *seuk, from Proto-Germanic *seukaz, from *seukaną (“to be sick”), further etymology is uncertain.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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seek (masculine seeke, feminine seeke, comparative seeker, superlative et seekst) (German-based spelling)

  1. (rare or archaic in many dialects) sick, ill
    Synonym: krank
  2. infected
    Hää hau einge seeke Monk. ― He had an infected mouth.
  3. sickly (frequently ill, given to becoming ill, or having the appearance of sickness)
    Et seek Kenk ess wärm krank. ― The sickly child is ill again.

Derived terms

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