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Definition 2025

search engine ‎(plural search engines)

(computing) an application that searches for, and retrieves, data based on some criteria, especially one that searches the Internet for documents containing specified words

1985, Geoffrey Neate, Memex: evaluation of a search engine, OCLC 16185349, page 41:
The MEMEX search engine with Textract software has been proved able to search the 1,251,521 records of the Pre-1920 Catalogue in four minutes.

application that searches for data

Arabic: مُحَرِّك اَلْبَحْث m ‎(muḥarrik al-baḥṯ)
Catalan: cercador (ca) m, motor de cerca (ca) m
Chinese:
Mandarin: 搜索引擎 (zh) ‎(sōusuǒ yǐnqíng), 搜索機, 搜索机 ‎(sōusuǒjī), 搜尋引擎 (zh), 搜寻引擎 (zh) ‎(sōuxún yǐnqíng)
Czech: vyhledávač m
Danish: søgemaskine c
Dutch: zoekmotor m, zoekmachine (nl) f
Esperanto: serĉilo
Estonian: otsimootor, otsingumootor (et)
Finnish: hakukone (fi)
French: moteur de recherche (fr) m
Galician: buscador (gl) m, motor de busca m
German: Suchmaschine (de) f
Greek: μηχανή αναζήτησης f ‎(michaní anazítisis)
Hebrew: מנוע חיפוש (he) m ‎(m'nóa-khipús)
Hungarian: keresőmotor (hu)
Irish: inneall cuardaigh m
Italian: motore di ricerca (it) m

Japanese: サーチエンジン ‎(sāchi-enjin), 検索エンジン ‎(kensaku-enjin)
Kazakh: іздеу жүйесі ‎(izdew jüyesi)
Luxembourgish: Sichmaschinn f
Macedonian: пребарувач m ‎(prebáruvač)
Malay: enjin carian
Norwegian Bokmål: søkemotor m
Norwegian Nynorsk: søkjemotor m
Polish: wyszukiwarka (pl) f, szukajka f (colloquial)
Portuguese: máquina de busca f, motor de busca m
Romanian: motor de căutare n
Russian: поиско́вая систе́ма (ru) f ‎(poiskóvaja sistéma), поискови́к (ru) m ‎(poiskovík), поиско́вая маши́на f ‎(poiskóvaja mašína)
Scottish Gaelic: lorgair m
Slovene: iskalnik m
Spanish: buscador (es) m, motor de búsqueda m
Swedish: sökmotor (sv) c
Turkish: arama motoru (tr)