search engine

American  

[surch en-juhn] / ˈsɜrtʃ ˌɛn dʒən /

noun

Digital Technology.

search engines plural

1. a computer program that searches documents, especially on the World Wide Web, for a specified word or words and provides a list of documents in which they are found.

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search engine British  

noun

1. computing a service provided on the internet enabling users to search for items of interest

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search engine Cultural  

1. Web sites or software that search the Internet for documents that contain a key word, phrase, or subject that is specified by the user to the search engine. Each engine has its own method of searching for information.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• search engines
  plural

Etymology

Origin of search engine

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

search engine

"The best products should succeed because they're better, not because they're owned by the company running the search engine," she said.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

Geoff Saab was at a dental appointment when a client was chatting with the receptionist about search engine stocks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026

Today there are decacorns valued at over $10 billion, such as artificial-intelligence search engine Perplexity and Fortnite maker Epic Games.

From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026

A June 2025 MIT paper mentioned by Fernandez studied a group of students writing the same essay, with one using an LLM, one using a search engine, and one using just their brain.

From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026

It’s the part of the online world you don’t see, that no search engine will ever show you.

From "Warcross" by Marie Lu