⏾ Concept Map

''query'' ⚬ Entries

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''query'' ⚬｜Definition｜1st｜20260511125737-00-⌔

query - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

query (plural queries)

  • A question, an inquiry (US), an enquiry (UK).
    • ✤ The teacher answered the student’s query concerning biosynthesis.
    • ✤ Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.1
  • A question mark.
    • ✤ His Glossary has ‘ bouchen, to stop people’s mouths,’; but this is followed by a query, to show that it was but a guess. I have shown, from the MSS. and other sources, that it should be bonched, i.e. bunched, bumped, knocked, smote.2
    • ✤ She had written in her diary: “I don’t think I am in a concentration-camp??????”, the queries growing larger and more numerous till they covered the entire page […]3
    • ✤ I refer you to your line above, where you use a query and a bang together.4
  • (computing, databases) A set of instructions passed to a database.
    • ✤ The database admin switched on query logging for debugging purposes.
  • (publishing) Ellipsis of query letter.
    • ✤ Although many agents accept email queries, check to see if they prefer mailed query letters.5

Verb

query (third-person singular simple present queries, present participle querying, simple past and past participle queried)

  • (intransitive) To ask a question.
  • (transitive) To ask, inquire.
    • ✤ It’s queried whether there be any Science in the ſenſe of the Dogmatiſts: […]6
    • ✤ “You must have had an active life,” queried the shopkeeper, “before you retired?”7
    • ✤ I tried that once in an AOL thing called “The Arena”, I can’t remember who the celebrity was, but I posed some divinely thoughtful, inspired, well-crafted question, and they chose one, instead, that querried her favourite colour, quelle banel.8
  • (transitive) To question or call into doubt.
    • ✤ The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.9
  • (computing, databases) To pass a set of instructions to a database to retrieve information from it.
    • ✤ Linked tables can be accessed, queried, combined and reorganised much more flexibly and in a number of ways that may not be immediately predictable when the database is under construction.10
  • (transitive, Internet) To send a private message to (a user on IRC).
    • ✤ if you know someone who is in the channel, you can query them and ask for the key.11
  • (intransitive, publishing) To send out a query letter.

Etymology

An anglicisation of quere, an obsolete variant form of Latin quaere, second-person singular present active imperative of quaerō (“seek, look for; ask”); perhaps suffixed with -y (“abstract noun”). Cognate with French quérir, Italian chiedere, Portuguese querer, Romanian cere, and Spanish querer. Compare question.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkwɪə.ɹi/, /ˈkwɪː.ɹi/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈkwɪɹ.i/, /ˈkwɛɹ.i/
    • Audio (Texas): 🔊
  • (Canada) IPA: /ˈkwɪɹ.i/
  • (Australian) IPA: /ˈkwɪə.ɹi/
  • (New Zealand) IPA: /ˈkwiə.ɹi/
  • (Scotland) IPA: /ˈkwi.ɹɪ/, /ˈkwi.ɹe/
  • (East Anglia, cheer–chair merger) IPA: /ˈkwɛː.ɹi/
  • (South Asia) IPA: /ˈkʋɛ.ri/
  • Rhymes: -ɪəɹi, -ɛɹi
  • Homophone: quaere (some pronunciations)

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ᯤ)

Footnotes

  1. 1910, Emerson Hough, “The Gateway, and Some Who Passed”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 29: ↩

  2. 1886, Skeat, Address of the President to the Philological Society, Great Britain: ↩

  3. 1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings: ↩

  4. 2006, Pip, “Re: Royal Enfield motorbike - why would anyone buy one?”, in rec.motorcycles (Usenet): ↩

  5. 2006, Michael Larsen, How to Get a Literary Agent ‎, Sourcebooks Inc., page 46: ↩

  6. 1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter XX, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing: Or Confidence in Opinions. […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC, page 188: ↩

  7. 1994, Dermot Healy, “As Gaelige”, in A Goat’s Song, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Viking, published 1995, →ISBN, part II (The Salmon of Knowledge), page 160: ↩

  8. 1997 August 16, PRINCESSPK, “Re: Opinions wanted for magazine article”, in alt.showbiz.gossip ‎ (Usenet): ↩

  9. 1963, Margery Allingham, “Eye Witness”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 249: ↩

  10. 1999, Luciano Floridi, Philosophy and computing: an introduction, page 104: ↩

  11. 2000, Robert Erdec, “Re: Help; mIRC32; unable to resolve server arnes.si”, in alt.irc.mirc (Usenet): ↩

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