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Exploring thoroughly; scrutinizing; penetrating; trying; as, a searching discourse; a searching eye. "Piercing, searching, biting, cold." Dickens. -- Search"ing*ly, adv. -- Search"ing*ness, n.

Made of cheveril; pliant. [Obs.] A cheveril conscience and a searching wit. Drayton.

Severe; trying or searching, as if bringing to the cross; decisive; as, a crucial test.

guarded. Motley. Domiciliary visit (Law), a visit to a private dwelling, particularly for searching it, under authority.

A divining rod used in searching for water, ore, etc., a dowsing rod. [Colloq.]

A net, or an apparatus, to be drawn along the bottom under water, as in fishing, searching for drowned persons, etc.

Tending to fish out; searching out [R.] Carlyle.

Serving or intended to explore; searching; examining; explorative. Sir H. Wotton.

organs or certain animals (as insects), which are used in testing objects by touch and in searching for food; an antenna; a palp. Insects . . . perpetually feeling and searching before them with their feelers or antennæ. Derham.

ht or knowledge of, as of something new, or unknown; hence, to fall in with, as a person. Searching the window for a flint, I found This paper, thus sealed up. Shak. In woods and forests thou art found. Cowley.

Searching; exploring; investigating. [Obs.] Jer. Taylor.

Given to examination, investigation, or research; searching; curious. A young, inquisitive, and sprightly genius. I. Watts.

Pertaining to inquisition; making rigorous and unfriendly inquiry; searching; as, inquisitorial power. "Illiberal and inquisitorial abuse." F. Blackburne. He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorious power even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience. Hume.…

Given to investigation; inquisitive; curious; searching.

The searching of a ship for unentered goods. [Eng.] [Written also jerguer.]

A thorough searching; a minute inquiry or scrutiny. Carlyle

To use a rake, as for searching or for collecting; to scrape; to search minutely. One is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words. Dryden.

Dealing in things abstruse; profound; searching; as, recondite studies. "Recondite learning." Bp. Horsley.

A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over. He has such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony. Walpole. Rummage sale, a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop. Simmonds.

An instructor who examines with great or unnecessary severity; also, a searching or strict examination of a student by an instructor. [Cant, American Colleges]