Researching

How to spell researching

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce researching

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does researching mean?

1. verbIn the process of studying or investigating a subject carefully to discover facts.

Researching in a sentence

• She spent the weekend researching flights and hotel prices for the trip.

• Our team is researching the causes of the recent drop in sales.

Where does researching come from?

Language of origin: French

This word builds on 'research', which English took from the Middle French 'recerche', a noun meaning 'a careful seeking out', formed from the verb 'recercher', 'to seek again or seek thoroughly'. That verb combined the intensifying prefix 're-' with 'cercher', the Old French ancestor of modern 'chercher', meaning 'to look for', which itself descends from the Late Latin 'circare', 'to go around or wander through', from 'circus', meaning 'circle'. The literal image is therefore of going round and round a subject until you find what you are after. English adopted 'research' in the late 1500s, and the present participle 'researching' simply adds the '-ing' ending. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the silent first 'e' and the 'sea' sequence borrowed from 'search' both sound nothing like they look.

How the word is built

• re- (again, repeatedly)
• search (to look for)
• -ing (present participle suffix)