What is the meaning of this word?
People who are searching for god.
Thanks. Would this be a noun, common gender, plural?
the base noun is zoekende, which derives from the verb zoeken (to search). een zoekende is a person who is searching, for example, for a house or something to buy; een godzoekende, then, as Niek has explained, is someone searching for god.
you can look up words here to determine whether they are mannelijk or vrouwelijk (masculine or feminine) ‘de’ nouns, or onzijdig (neuter) ‘het’ nouns:
zoekende is not listed, but according to wiktionary it can be m/v (masculine or feminine), so either way, it is a ‘de’ noun:
de zoekende
the plural is:
de zoekenden
wiktionary also identifies whether there is a diminutive form of the word (verkleinwoord). Verkleinwoorden (diminutives) always take ‘het’ in the singular. All plurals take ‘de.’ There is no diminutive of zoekende or, to my knowledge, any other noun that ends in -de that derives from a verb.
Great information. Thanks for all your help