sought
Americanverb
verb
Other Word Forms
Explanation
I have long sought an answer to the following question: If sought is the past tense of seek, how come you say "we played hide and seek all afternoon" instead of "we hid and sought all afternoon?" Seek means to look for, and sought is what you say when you're done with the looking. "As a young man, I sought my fortune. Now it is time for me to sit by the fire, searching for the long-sought-after answer to the timeless question 'What did it all mean?'"
Vocabulary lists containing sought
"O Captain! My Captain!" Vocabulary from the poem
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Word Generation Weekly - Series 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Sought in decades past by the likes of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Bernardo Bertolucci, he’s now lending his lensing genius to a new generation of storytellers with ideas just as biting.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2025
Sought for their fluency in various African languages, content moderators hired by Sama in Kenya soon found themselves looking at graphic content that hit painfully close to home.
From Seattle Times • Jun. 29, 2023
In 1989, the New York Times published an article titled, “Wider Door at Top Colleges Sought by Asian-Americans.”
From Slate • Nov. 2, 2018
Sought out by FBI agents investigating computer crimes, he realized government agencies did not understand what was going on in these communities and “were vastly overreacting,” Cohn said.
From Washington Post • Feb. 8, 2018
It was the very day the clergyman Sought Jacob Bangs to get his signature Upon a note for money at the bank.
From Domesday Book by Masters, Edgar Lee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
