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

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Etymology

Origin of search engine

First recorded in 1990–95

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

search engine

Google will turn off its AI tools, including its search engine and Gemini chatbot, by default for primary and secondary school student accounts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026

Only about half of all searches led to a click outside the search engine, Elliott said.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026

And historically, businesses also counted on getting free traffic to their sites from search engine optimization as users browsed the web.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2026

Google's omnipresent search engine now defaults to AI summaries of a person's query, and that hit the number of advertisements it was able to sell during the quarter.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

Dr. Atchley, clearly anxious, borrows a cell phone and taps the right location into the mobile Google search engine.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

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