Hide and Seek Made Seeker a Job Title
A seeker is someone who looks for something. The word covers children's games, religious searching, guided missiles and job hunting.
A seeker is a person or device that looks for something. The range is remarkable for such a plain word: a child counting to twenty is the seeker, a heat-seeking missile has a seeker head, and in seventeenth-century England the Seekers were a religious group who refused to settle on any church. The common thread is looking without having found.
- One who searches. *A seeker of truth.*
- In hide and seek — the one who looks. *You're the seeker.*
- A guidance device. *An infrared seeker.*
- Asylum seeker — someone applying for protection. *Asylum seekers await decisions.*
- Job seeker — someone looking for work. *Support for job seekers.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | seek | Seek advice. |
| Past | sought | He sought help. |
| Agent | seeker | A lone seeker. |
| Plural | seekers | Asylum seekers. |
| Compound | heat-seeking | A heat-seeking missile. |
- Count to twenty — you're the seeker.The game.
- Attention seekers thrive on the reaction.Mildly critical.
- The missile's seeker locked on.Technical.
Seek is an irregular verb
- Present — seek
- Past — sought, not seeked
- Past participle — sought
- Same pattern — buy and bought, bring and brought, think and thought
- Fixed phrase — much sought after
From Old English *secan*, to seek, plus the agent ending -er. The past form *sought* preserves an older consonant that the present tense lost.
What is the past tense of seek?
Sought. Seeked is not standard English.
Who were the Seekers?
An English religious movement of the 1600s who rejected established churches and waited for a true one. Many later joined the Quakers.