Definition of "research"

In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.

2012 January, Philip E. Mirowski, “Harms to Health from the Pursuit of Profits”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 4 April 2012, page 87

The dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries.

1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 1, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

The first step I took in this so necessary a research, was to examine the motives, the justice, the necessity and expediency of the revolution […]

1747, The Scots magazine, volume 9, page 567

Although very numerous researches have been made on the differentiation of striped muscles, and on the termination of their motor nerve-fibres, yet the multifarious observations have often been too incomplete to lead to any but conflicting and unsatisfactory theories.

1883 December, “Zoology. A. General, including Embryology and Histology of the Vertebrata. Development of Muscle-fibres and their Union with Nerves”, in Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, volume 3, number 6, page 821