query

Etymology

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

noun

1. A question, an inquiry (US), an enquiry (UK).
   The teacher answered the student’s query concerning biosynthesis.
2. 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. 1886, Skeat, Address of the President to the Philological Society, Great Britain
   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 […] 1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings
   I refer you to your line above, where you use a query and a bang together. 2006, Pip, “Re: Royal Enfield motorbike - why would anyone buy one?”, in rec.motorcycles (Usenet)
3. (computing, databases) A set of instructions passed to a database.
   The database admin switched on query logging for debugging purposes.

verb

1. (intransitive) To ask a question.
2. (transitive) To ask, inquire.
   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. 1997-08-16, PRINCESSPK, “Re: Opinions wanted for magazine article”, in alt.showbiz.gossip (Usenet)
3. (transitive) To question or call into doubt.
4. (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. 1999, Luciano Floridi, Philosophy and computing: an introduction, page 104
5. (transitive, Internet) To send a private message to (a user on IRC).
   He parted the channel saying "SHUTUP!"... so I queried him, asking if there was something I could do.. maybe talk... 2000, Phantom, “Re: Uhm.. hi... I guess...”, in alt.support.boy-lovers (Usenet)
   if you know someone who is in the channel, you can query them and ask for the key. 2000, Robert Erdec, “Re: Help; mIRC32; unable to resolve server arnes.si”, in alt.irc.mirc (Usenet)
6. (intransitive, publishing) To send out a query letter.