quærere

Quærere is a Latin verb meaning to seek, to obtain, or to inquire. The standard form is quaerere, with the present participle quaerens and the implied noun sense in phrases such as quaerentes (“seekers”). In Latin usage the concept of seeking can refer to physical pursuit, intellectual inquiry, or spiritual searching, reflecting the broad semantic field of the verb. The ligature æ appears in older editions, producing forms like quærere; modern editions commonly print quaerere.

Historically, quærere has given rise to many related words in Latin and its descendants. In medieval Latin, phrases built from quaerere appear in religious and philosophical texts, often to express the act of seeking truth, God, or knowledge. The famous Easter trope Quem quaeritis? (“Whom do you seek?”) uses a related verb form and illustrates how the root entered liturgical drama. The sense of seeking also contributed to the development of English vocabulary, yielding words such as query, inquire, inquiry, quest, and related terms, all tracing back to the same Latin root.

In linguistic and philological contexts, quærere is discussed as the etymological basis for a family of words about seeking or questioning. In modern scholarship, the standard spelling quaerere is preferred, with quærere encountered mainly in historical editions and discussions of Latin orthography or older texts. The term thus marks a fundamental concept—the act of seeking—that spans classical literature, medieval religion, and the history of European languages.