inquire

What it means

1. AustraliaCanadaUSambitransitiveintransitiveTo ask (about something).

   May I inquire to whom I have the honor of speaking?

   1 more example

   "A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day.[…]A strong man—a strong one; and a heedless." ¶ "Of what party is he?" she inquired, as though casually.

   1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

2. ambitransitiveintransitiveTo make an inquiry or an investigation.

   Police are already inquiring into the incident.

   1 more example

   It is these people, gentlemen, the disseminators of these rumours, who are my dangerous accusers; because those who hear them suppose that anyone who inquires into such matters must be an atheist.

   1954, Plato, translated by Hugh Tredennick, “Socrates on Trial: The Apology”, in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics), Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 20

3. ambitransitiveobsoletetransitiveTo call; to name.

   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, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 12

In a sentence

May I inquire to whom I have the honor of speaking?

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*kʷeh₂-“to acquire”
2. Proto-Italic*kʷaizeō
3. Latininquīrō“to seek for”
4. Englishinquire

From Latin inquīrō (“to seek for”), composed of in- (“in, at, on; into”) + quaerō (“to seek, look for”), of uncertain origin, but possibly from Proto-Italic *kʷaizeō, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₂- (“to acquire”). Displaced Middle English enqueren (from Old French enquerre, of the same source) and native Middle English speir (“ask, inquire”).