querying

Verb

query (third-person singular simple present queries, present participle querying, simple past and past participle queried)

1. (intransitive) To ask a question.
2. (transitive) To ask, inquire.
   • It’s queried whether there be any Science in the ſenſe of the Dogmatiſts: […]1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter XX, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing: Or Confidence in Opinions. […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC, page 188
3. (transitive) To question or call into doubt.
   • The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.1963, Margery Allingham, “Eye Witness”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 249
4. 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. (Internet, transitive) To send a private message to (a user on IRC).
   • 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) To send out a query letter.

See all 10 meanings of query