google

verb, often capitalized goo·gle \ ˈgü-gəl \

Updated on: 20 May 2018

Definition of google

googled; googling play \ˈgü-g(ə-)liŋ\

transitive verb

: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (someone or something) on the World Wide Web

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 of google from the Web

People tend to google them, which means traffic, so we are told to cover them.

— alex van buren, Health.com, "‘National Eat What You Want Day’ Is One Food Holiday We Plan to Celebrate—Today and Every Day," 11 May 2018
See our list of the South's National Parks here and start googling trail mix recipes.

— Southern Living, "A Visit to National Parks Won't Cost You Anything on These Four Days," 9 Jan. 2018
Canadians googled furiously to find out what this might mean.

— The Economist, "An involuntary celibate goes on a killing spree in Canada," 26 Apr. 2018
When Missi googled Derek Alldred, half a dozen mug shots of Richie—Derek—popped up, alongside news articles with alarming phrases such as career con man and long history of deception.

— rachel monroe, The Atlantic, "The Perfect Man Who Wasn't," 6 Mar. 2018
Hundreds of the recipients have googled the real-life iniTech and contacted Mr. DiBernardo’s nine-person engineering firm based in Clifton, N.J., asking for the faxes to stop.

— spencer jakab, WSJ, "Sorry, We Do Not Employ Anyone Named Iron Man," 4 Aug. 2017
And also googling meanings of things, Ada means happy…I thought well that’s fitting.

— rebecca angel baer, Southern Living, "WATCH: The Sweet Story Behind Lauren Akins and Thomas Rhett’s Daughters’ Names," 13 Apr. 2018
But a seven-syllable, clinical-sounding term that prospective partners need to google—demisexuality—is obviously far superior to a short, explanatory sentence that doesn't require internet access to understand.

— dan savage, Chicago Reader, "Is my husband having sex with other women?," 13 Sep. 2017
This is easy enough to google, or punch in your salary x .01 and divide by the number of pay periods in a year.

— NBC News, "It’s the lazy person’s guide to money chores.," 19 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'google.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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.

Origin and Etymology of google

Google, trademark for a search engine

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 2000

in the meaning defined above

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GOOGLE Defined for Kids

google

verb goo·gle \ ˈgü-gəl \

Definition of google for Students

googled; googling

: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the Internet

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google

Definition of google

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Origin and Etymology of google

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GOOGLE Defined for Kids

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