Talk:google

16,000 hits for googling on Google. Fred Bauder 13:40 Dec 28, 2002 (UTC)

From an interview with William Gibson:

So is Google officially a verb now?

When I wrote Pattern Recognition, it occurred to me that I could use it as a verb and it also occurred to me that someone might already have done so. I thought it didn't matter too much. If I'm first that's great, but if I'm not, then it's just good reportage in a way. Sites like Wiktionary track new usages and neologisms. The page on Google as a verb went back almost two years!


 * We must be careful here. Google Inc take a stern view of their product being used as a generic term for search engines and as a verb spelled with a lower-case initial.  Our definition, as it stands, rubs them up the wrong way on both counts.  I think we need some additions, such as acknowledgement of trademark status and a warning that the term is officially neither generic nor spelled with a lower-case initial, even if it is used that way. -- Paul G 13:52, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * See http://www.google.com/permissions/trademarks.html -- Paul G 14:55, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't think a dictionary should have to worry about trademarks, as long as we report generic trademarks that are actually generic (as Google is becoming). --Eean 20:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is there really a language that has "verbized" Google that doesn't use it in both meanings? I kind of doubt it.

Though now that I think about, I've never heard of someone using the verb 'google' that didn't mean they were using Google. --Eean 20:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

''A quick look (for something or someone) ... in a place'' I took a google round the room (= I quickly looked around the room but not very thoroughly.)

Who the hell uses 'google' in that sense? Some pretty detached people, I'd guess. --84.71.118.198 12:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

What about this word?
Googlelicious. Should there be a article on it or not? 58.105.18.91 09:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That does not seem to be attested in any book. So, probably not.  --Connel MacKenzie 16:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not that word🙈 Wendy Wagon (talk) 18:56, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

First usage as veb
This page says that the fist usage of the word "google" as a verb was in 1998. This is incorrect. James Joyce used google as a present participle in Finnegans Wake, published in 1939. "One chap googling the holyboy's thingabib and this lad wetting his widdle." -page 620, line 22 122.249.2.50 11:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Is googling as a verb the same as using google as a verb?

The first usage as a verb was by George Ade in 1922, in his short story "Single Blessedness." This noted writer had the following sentence: "Charley Fresh - who regards himself as the irresistible captivator - googles his way among the girls for six nights a week and is known as a 'lady's man.'"

This copyrighted story was also included in a 1942 collection of short stories by Dial Press. 69.143.81.238 21:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting. If it was 1922, I expect the copyright has expired by now, not that it matters for our purposes in merely quoting it. And what does google mean here? It doesn't seem to match any sense we have. Equinox ◑ 21:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

fridge-Googling AND Google cooking?
the phrase fridge-googling seems to be replacing Google cooking, see http://www.macmillandictionary.com/New-Words/070219-fridge-googling.htm However, we have an entry for the latter, but not the former...?

Should slang or dialects be included in translations?
I noticed this entry: I believe "googla" shouldn't be encluded here, as it's not a word in the written norwegian language. Does anybody know the guidelines on the matter of slang terms and dialects? Are1981 10:13, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Norwegian:, googla (depending on slang/dialect)
 * Slang is allowed if it can be attested per WT:CFI. DAVilla 21:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

RFV discussion
I am especially dubious about the sense of "a quick look in a place", but citations for "a quick look on the internet" wouldn't hurt either. Polarpanda 14:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh TALK 17:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Any relation with "goggles" ?
Isn't there any relation with "goggles" : a night vision device used in the military. Much like Google let you "see" through the WWW cloud ?


 * No, it comes from googol (a large number). Equinox ◑ 15:50, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

intranstive: google on
I just googled on "take stalk of" and discovered that I'm far from the only person who made that error. --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:45, 29 March 2020 (UTC)