DictionaryAI

inquire

verb
in-KWYR/ɪnˈkwaɪɹ/UKin-KWY-uh/ɪnˈkwaɪə/

Formsinquires, inquiring, inquired

UK spellingenquire

3 meanings of inquire

Practice

  1. 1
    verbAustraliaCanadaUStransitive or intransitive
    To ask in order to obtain information about something.

    Several customers inquired about the new return policy.

    I called the office to inquire about job openings.

    Similarask

    Oppositeanswer, reply

    Note

    Here the verb does the everyday work of asking, and in this use it belongs to the English of the US, Canada and Australia. Behind it is Latin inquīrō, "to seek for," built on quaerō, "I seek." It takes about before a topic, or a question clause directly: May I inquire to whom I have the honor of speaking? Emerson Hough's The Purchase Price (1910) uses it to introduce a line of dialogue, as said would.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To carry out an inquiry or investigation into a matter.

    Investigators inquired into the company's financial records.

    A panel was set up to inquire into the safety failures.

    Similarprobe, delve, look, investigate

    Note

    The investigative use typically takes into: police inquire into an incident, and a panel inquires into failures. That preposition is the easiest way to tell it from the simple asking sense, which goes with about. Asking about a policy is a question, but inquiring into it is a probe. In Hugh Tredennick's 1954 translation of Plato's Apology, Socrates fears that anyone who inquires into such matters will be taken for an atheist.

  3. 3
    verbobsoletetransitive or intransitive
    To call or name someone or something.
    Canute had his portion from the rest, The which he cald Canutium, for his hyre, Now Cantium, which Kent we commenly inquire.
    1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
    Note

    A long-dead use, met now only in older writing, where the verb meant to give a thing its name. Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) traces Kent back through Cantium, "which Kent we commenly inquire," that is, which we commonly call Kent. The verb takes the thing as its object and the name as a complement, the same pattern call still uses. Readers should recognize it but never write it.

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Origin

From Latin inquīrō ("to seek for"), formed from in- ("in, into") plus quaerō ("I seek, look for"), which is of uncertain origin but possibly from Proto-Italic *kʷaizeō, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₂- ("to acquire"). It displaced Middle English enqueren (from Old French enquerre, of the same source) and native Middle English speir ("ask, inquire").