verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
-
to search for (something on the internet) using a search engine
-
to check (the credentials of someone) by searching for websites containing his or her name
Etymology
Origin of Google
First recorded in 1998; after mathematical term googol
Explanation
To google is to use an online search engine to find some piece of information. You might google your favorite author to find out what other books she's written. Searching the Internet for answers to questions, details about people, map directions, and other information is a common activity for most of us, and since the 1990s, most of us have come to use the verb google to describe it. The verb comes from the Google search engine, first active in 1997, although until about 2000 it was mostly used in the phrase "Do a google on."
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.
See Examples For:
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta didn’t respond to a request for comment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Some clues may come later Wednesday with results from Tesla and Google parent Alphabet, followed by fellow tech bellweathers Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon next week.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
For USA Today’s national paper, organic Google search traffic from U.S. users fell by nearly half between June 2025 and June 2026, according to search measurement firm Semrush.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
The San Bruno-based company owned by Google agreed to a $7.5-million settlement in a class action lawsuit that alleged the company violated California’s automatic renewal law when renewing YouTube TV subscriptions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
“Why not? The guy’s a moron. He didn’t tell me anything about how to open the front door, which is what my Google search said this magazine would do!”
From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein
He told me the name, and I Googled it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
Villarreal: I Googled — and I will say I clearly am not the only one that thought this because there was a whole story of it — “Did they really eat KFC chicken?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
Wordle was originally created and developed by Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021 and acquired by the NYT in 2022, when it was also the most Googled word of the year.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
I Googled “Philadelphia public radio” and found WXPN, now my gold standard.
From Slate ● Apr. 12, 2026
I Googled around and found out that Black wasn’t the name of a company that made lockboxes.
From "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer
Fair warning, though: You won’t make it through this book without Googling the price of a one-way trip to Italy.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
"You're Googling stuff that you think you already know and then you kind of tick the box after that saying, oh, I've already done my work for today, my therapy work with ChatGPT," he says.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2025
Still, I haven’t stopped Googling things or ditched my Gmail, because that would be an epic pain.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025
Barrios Gracián’s training consisted of a free entrepreneur course through the city of Anaheim, a video by the American Booksellers Assn., talking to other bookstore owners and Googling “how to open a bookstore.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2025
As Genie was about to start searching the next question, his Googling was cut short.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
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.
