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PlainSpell

seek

/ˈsiːk/verb, noun

seek is spelled S-E-E-K: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 41 times per million words in written English, the 2,438th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, seek means “To try to find; to look for; to search for” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in seek?

Letters4: S-E-E-K
Syllables1
In writing41 times per million words; the 2,438th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is seek?

Seek appears 41 times per million words in written English, the 2,438th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce seek?

  • /ˈsiːk/
  • [ˈsɪi̯k]

Seek has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-seek.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with seek

Sounds like: Sikh (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of seek

  • seeks present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • seeking participle, present
  • sought participle, past, singular, he/she/it, plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does seek mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To try to find; to look for; to search for.

    I seek wisdom.

  2. 2

    To try to acquire or gain; to strive after.

    I sought my fortune on the goldfields.

  3. 3

    To try to reach or come to (a location).

    When the alarm went off I sought the exit in a panic.

  4. 4

    To attempt, to try [with infinitive ‘to do something’].

    Our company does not seek to limit its employees from using the internet or engaging in social networking.

  5. 5

    To ask for; to solicit.

    I seek forgiveness through repentance.

  6. 6

    obsoleteTo go, to move, to travel (in a given direction).

  7. 7

    To move to a specified location (particularly of a disk drive or similar device).

    This function instructs the hard drive to seek to a specified track.

  8. 8

    To navigate through a data stream.

noun

  1. 1

    The operation of navigating through a stream.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate seek?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of seek: sk.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Seek in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchchercher (to try to find), quérir (to ask for)
Germansuchen (to try to find)
Portugueseprocurar (to try to find), pedir (to ask for)
Spanishbuscar (to try to find), pedir (to ask for), pretender, procurar (to attempt to, to try to)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does seek come from?

From Middle English seke, seken, from Old English sēċan, sēċean, sœ̄ċan, from Proto-West Germanic *sōkijan, from Proto-Germanic *sōkijaną (“to seek”), from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂gyeti (“to seek out”), from *seh₂g- (“to follow, trace”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after seek