google

verb

goo·​gle ˈgü-gəl How to pronounce google (audio)
variants or Google
googled or Googled; googling ˈgü-g(ə-)liŋ How to pronounce google (audio) or Googling; googles or Googles

transitive verb

: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (someone or something) on the World Wide Web
googleable adjective
or Googleable
The Massachusetts trio may not have picked an easily Googleable name … Leah Greenblatt

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Google vs. Googol

The verb google and the noun googol are commonly confused because they have similar pronunciations. Google is the word that is more common to us now, and so it is sometimes mistakenly used as a noun to refer to the number 10100. That number is a googol, so named by Milton Sirotta, the nephew of the American mathematician Edward Kasner, who was working with large numbers like 10100. Google, on the other hand, is the name of a search engine as well as a verb that refers to searching the Internet using the Google search engine. (The search engine’s name was inspired by the number: the founders of Google chose the name to reflect their mission “to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.”) You can remember that the number is spelled googol by remembering that a googol has lots of o’s.

Two related words, googolplex and googleplex, are also commonly confused. A googolplex is the number 1 followed by a googol of zeros; the Googleplex is the Mountain View, California headquarters of Google.

Examples of google in a Sentence

Then where are they going, if not to Faulkner and Achebe and Naipaul?  … To the movies; to television (hours and hours); to Googling obsessively (hours and hours); to blogging and emailing and text messaging … Cynthia Ozick, Harper's, April 2007
The Sports Gal and I delayed dinner plans so I could analyze the replays like a police chief. Eventually she realized we weren't leaving the house, so she made herself a sandwich and headed upstairs to Google divorce lawyers. Bill Simmons, ESPN, 6 Dec. 2004
Have you ever googled yourself, maybe late at night, when nobody else was around? It's OK, you can admit it—everybody does it. Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News, 17 Apr. 2004
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
And millennials, who have grown up Googling everything, often call him something else entirely. Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov. 2024 Figure out who’s on the ballot by reading your local newspaper, googling, or through an automatic sample ballot generator like this one. Julia Sullivan, SELF, 7 Oct. 2024 The lawsuit claims that because Stellar Blade now exists as a popular game, that anyone googling Stellar Blade cannot find its website anymore. Paul Tassi, Forbes, 24 Sep. 2024 However, the name still didn't click with Davis, who then stepped aside to quickly Google him. Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY, 20 Sep. 2024 See all Example Sentences for google 

Word History

Etymology

Google, trademark for a search engine

First Known Use

2000, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of google was in 2000

Dictionary Entries Near google

Cite this Entry

“Google.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.

Kids Definition

google

verb
goo·​gle ˈgü-gəl How to pronounce google (audio)
googled; googling -g(ə-)liŋ How to pronounce google (audio)
: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the Internet

More from Merriam-Webster on google

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