Researches

How to spell researches

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce researches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does researches mean?

1. verbStudies a subject carefully and systematically to discover facts (used of he, she, or it).
2. nounMultiple systematic investigations or studies into a subject.

Researches in a sentence

• verb

  She researches market trends before launching any new product.

• noun

  Her researches into local history filled several notebooks.

• verb

  The journalist researches every claim before publishing the article.

• noun

  The committee reviewed the team's recent researches on water quality.

Where does researches come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Old French recerche, a noun from the verb recercher meaning 'to seek out' or 'to search closely'. That verb combined the prefix re-, used here as an intensifier rather than meaning 'again', with cercher 'to search', which itself descended from the Late Latin circare 'to go around or wander through', built on circus 'a ring or circle'. So at its literal root the idea is of moving round and round a thing until you have examined it fully. English adopted it in the late 1500s, first as a verb for diligent inquiry and then as a noun for the inquiry itself, and the plural and third-person form simply adds -es because the base ends in the -ch sound. The buried circ- of 'circle' and 'circus' is the same element, which is a neat reminder that to research is to circle a subject thoroughly.

How the word is built

• re- (again, intensive)
• search (to look thoroughly)
• -es (plural noun / third-person verb suffix)