Short Definition
Semantic search retrieves information by meaning rather than only exact keyword overlap.
Intuition
A semantic search system can match "car repair cost" with documents about "vehicle maintenance pricing."
Technical Definition
Semantic search usually embeds queries and documents into vector space, then ranks candidates by learned similarity and optional lexical or metadata signals.
Example
An internal docs search can retrieve relevant policies even when employees phrase questions differently.
Common Misunderstandings
Semantic search is not always better than keyword search.
The best systems often combine lexical and vector retrieval.