Question

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈkwɛs.tʃən/

Definitions

1. A sentence or phrase used to obtain information, clarification, or elicit a response from someone
2. A statement designed to solicit information, clarify understanding, or encourage a specific response from someone
3. An inquiry posed to seek information, uncover knowledge, or stimulate a particular answer from an individual

Etymology: The English word "question" arrived from Old French, and before that it was a Latin legal and philosophical term for a formal investigation. Latin "quaestio" came from "quaerere," "to seek, ask, inquire," so a question was originally an act of seeking something out. The Latin "quaestio" also gave English "quest," a doublet that entered the language by a different route and kept the sense of searching. English had a native word for this idea long before the French one arrived. Old English "āscung," the ancestor of "asking," covered the same ground, and "question" partly displaced it after the Norman period. Related forms in Middle Low German and Middle High German show the same pattern of meaning across neighbouring languages. The verb came into Middle English in two ways: partly from Middle French "questionner," and partly from the noun itself. So the noun and verb developed side by side, both drawing on the same Latin root of seeking and inquiring.

Synonyms: inquiry, query, interrogation, probe, doubt

Antonyms: answer, response, solution, certainty, affirmation