Once upon a time, SternData <subscribed-lists(a)sterndata.com> said:
Years ago, I used a tool called CED and PCED on DOS systems. I
could
type in "abc" and press an up-arrow and it would walk back through my
stack of DOS commands showing only those with "abc" in them.
There's *got* to be a similar tool for bash, but my google-fu is weak
today.
In addition to keyboard shortcuts...
history | grep abc | less
If what you're looking for came from a different, now closed, terminal
window, try
grep $HISTFILE abc | less