grep

Meanings

Proper Noun

• A program which selects lines in a file which match a given pattern.

Verb

• To use a program such as grep to search in a file.
• By extension, to search anything (perhaps a paper document by eye).

Origin

• From an idiomatic command sequence in the qed and ed text editors: ‘g/re/p’, meaning: globally search for a regular expression and print.