To Examine, To Research, To Look Into, To Search
Transitive verb and Ichidan verb
しらべる
今日の午後は、としょかんでせんそうについて調べました。
This afternoon, I looked up things about the war at the library.
けいさつがコウイチの車の中を調べると、中から酒によったフグが出てきました。
When the police investigated inside Koichi's car, a drunken blowfish came out.
カピバラが食べられるのかどうか、ちょっと調べてくれない？
Can you research capybaras and see if they are edible?
This word consists of kanji with hiragana attached. Because the hiragana ends with an う sound, you know this word is a verb. The kanji itself means investigate so the vocab verb version means to investigate.
Since this word consists of a kanji with hiragana attached, you can bet that it will use the kun'yomi reading. You didn't learn that reading with this kanji, so here's a mnemonic to help you:
You are hired to investigate someone's wife. It is said that she loves (しら) another man... but you need to investigate her to find out if that's true, for her husband of course.