On Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at  9:47:44 -0400, John P. Linderman wrote:
> "Grep" as a verb expanded beyond files. I recall a friend saying they were
> "grepping for their keys on the dresser".

It's interesting to note that the Oxford English Dictionary has
included grep`both as a noun and  as a verb in 2003.  From the noun:

  Etymology: < grep, a string of characters used as a command in the
             Unix operating system < the initial letters of global(ly)
             search regular expression print.

	     The string g/re/p (where re stands for the regular
	     expression searched for) was earlier used in a Unix text
	     editor as the syntax for a sequence of commands
	     performing the same operation as grep.

Here your usage:

 2. trans. slang (usually humorous). Of a person: to search; to scan visually.

   1984 The Doctor's New Clothes in net.tv.drwho (Usenet newsgroup) 16
        Aug.  Peter Davison happened across his clothes while grepping
        the TARDIS for the Zero Room.

Greg
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