search engine

American  

[surch en-juhn] / ˈsɜrtʃ ˌɛn dʒən /

noun

Digital Technology.

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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Etymology

Origin of search engine

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Over the years, European governments helped finance or promote multiple homegrown search engines but found little traction to rival Google.

From The Wall Street Journal

It didn’t work, but we still dreamed of a smarter health search engine.

From MarketWatch

Online searches for the dessert surged more than twenty-fold in the last three months, according to data from Naver, the country's largest search engine.

From Barron's

Someone has even built a search engine that allows users to find records on the dark web just by typing in a person's name.

From BBC

That stops us from having to pause in our work and get on another application or search engine to find something.

From Los Angeles Times