seek
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to try to find something or someone.
v.to search for or try to locate a person, place, or object.
Simple“The hikers had to seek shelter when the storm suddenly began.”
In context“The researchers traveled to the remote archipelago to seek rare plant species that had not been documented for over a century.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to ask for help, advice, or permission.
v.to request or solicit something from another person or authority.
Simple“You should seek legal advice before you sign the contract.”
In context“The diplomat was instructed to seek an audience with the prime minister to discuss the escalating border dispute.”
- 03 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to try to get or achieve something, like a goal or a new job.
v.to strive after or attempt to acquire a non-physical objective.
Simple“Many young people move to the city to seek their fortune.”
In context“The company continues to seek innovative ways to reduce its carbon footprint while maintaining high production levels.”
- 04 C1 Advanced
v.to move to a specific part of a video, audio file, or computer data.
v.to move a read head or pointer to a specific location within a data stream or on a storage device.
Simple“The video player allows you to seek to any timestamp instantly.”
In context“The application experienced significant latency because the hard drive had to seek across multiple sectors to retrieve the fragmented file.”
- 05 C2 Proficiency
n.the act of moving to a specific point in a digital file.
n.the operation of moving a pointer or playback head to a specific position in a stream.
Simple“The slow seek time on the old disk made the computer feel very laggy.”
In context“Optimizing the database reduced the number of random seeks required, significantly improving the overall query performance.”
Usage seek help · seek to pass · seek justice
“President Hakainde Hichilema is seeking a second five-year term.”
“But once a movement begins to seek power, she said, it can no longer avoid the question of what kind of Serbia it wants to build.”
From Middle English seken (also sechen, whence dialectal English seech), from Old English sēċan (compare beseech); from Proto-West Germanic sōkijan, from Proto-Germanic sōkijaną (“to seek”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to seek out”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian säike (“to seek”), West Frisian sykje (“to seek”), Dutch zoeken (“to seek”), Low German söken (“to seek”), German suchen (“to seek”), Danish søge (“to seek”), Swedish söka, Norwegian Bokmål søke (“to seek”), Norwegian Nynorsk søkja (“to seek”), Icelandic sækja (“to seek”). The Middle English and later Modern English hard /k/ derives from Old English sēcð, the third person singular; the forms with /k/ were then reinforced by cognate Old Norse sǿkja.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.