These words indicate any effort at finding, catching, following or examining something. Hunt at its most specific can refer to the specific activity of pursuing and killing animals, whether for food, profit or sport: Aborigines who hunted kangaroos for food; on a safari to hunt game. More generally, the word can indicate an uncertain groping for something needed: He hunted for the light switch along the wall of the dark room. It can also indicate an urgent following: She hunted everywhere in the neighbourhood for the tardy child. And it can point to any act of looking for something lost or missing: hunting for the missing book.

Track and sleuth relate closely to the aspect of hunt pertaining to following a quarry. Track can indicate the ability to detect a trail of clues: Red Indians skilled at tracking the spoor of a wounded bison. It can also apply more widely for hunting anything fugitive or difficult to find: determined to track down every suspicious item in the expense account submitted ho him. Sleuth compares such action to detective work and can apply as widely. But here the word refers more often to the search for clues itself, particularly where the quarry is not yet known: They sleuthed out every angle, however, slight, that could lead them to the killer; clinicians to sleuth down symptoms that might help diagnose the strange illness.

Search and seek are considerably more general than the previous pair. Search may indicate the act of looking for a lost object or for an object presumed to exist: navigators searching for a western route to the East Indies. The word may also apply to mere activity without clearly stated goals: young people searching for a cause that would give meaning to their lives. Hunt, by comparison with search , might suggest a more informed, purposive, focused or relentless activity: They cordoned off the factory and methodically hunted down the trapped thieves. Seek can give a more archaic flavour than search , except in set phrases: seek and find; seek and destroy; seeking out directions, a place or a person. The word can also indicate vague desires or high-minded aspirations; negotiators seeking the good of all mankind; peacemakers who have always sought an end to war.

Explore is like the aspect of search pertaining to activity that does not or cannot have a precisely stated goal in advance. Explore is much more clear-cut about this, since it always implies an attempt to learn more about an unknown: Livingstone was the first European to explore the Zambesi River; the thrill of exploring the streets of a strange city; an operation to explore the tissue surrounding the tumour for any signs of malignancy. The action indicated by explore can, of course, have a stated general goal, but some sense of newness or unfamiliarity is always present in the word.

The remaining words all involve the notion of a thorough or meticulous search of an area for evidence or for something lost or presumed to exist: Comb indicates a methodical, careful, minute and orderly covering of possibilities, often giving a tone of desperation and sometimes implying a group search: a search party that combed the hills for the missing campers. Scour compares to comb in thoroughness, but may suggest greater effort or intensity: The scoured the grounds for the missing keys. Although these words can be used interchangeably, comb might be more appropriate for small areas, since scour here can confusingly suggest the literal actions of abrasion. Ransack indicates a strikingly different action, comparable in thoroughness, but implying a hasty, careless or disorderly search : The had broken in and ransacked the darkroom for the incriminating roll of film, leaving the place a total mess. The word most often suggests the search of an interior, such as a house, room or drawer, and can often point to a furtive or illegal action.