[ekns]

Improved version using jq. This properly URL encodes the query parameter and uses a much simpler sed command. Additionally the API returns UTF-8 encoded data when the user agent is specified. Requires curl >= 7.18.0.

    function c() {
        url='https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=hp&hl=en&xhr=t'
        # NB: user-agent must be specified to get back UTF-8 data!
        curl -H 'user-agent: Mozilla/5.0' -sSG --data-urlencode "q=$*" "$url" |
            jq -r .[1][][0] |
            sed 's,</\?b>,,g'
    }

Example:

    $ c ':)' ':('
    ) ( meaning
    ) ( emoticon
    ) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
    ) ( emoticon meaning