Index: wp-includes/taxonomy.php
===================================================================
--- wp-includes/taxonomy.php	(revision 17488)
+++ wp-includes/taxonomy.php	(working copy)
@@ -1076,6 +1076,9 @@
  * name__like - Returned terms' names will begin with the value of 'name__like',
  * case-insensitive. Default is empty string.
  *
+ * description__like - Returned terms' descriptions will begin with the value of
+ * 'description__like', case-insensitive. Default is empty string.
+ *
  * The argument 'pad_counts', if set to true will include the quantity of a term's
  * children in the quantity of each term's "count" object variable.
  *
@@ -1127,7 +1130,8 @@
 		'hide_empty' => true, 'exclude' => array(), 'exclude_tree' => array(), 'include' => array(),
 		'number' => '', 'fields' => 'all', 'slug' => '', 'parent' => '',
 		'hierarchical' => true, 'child_of' => 0, 'get' => '', 'name__like' => '',
-		'pad_counts' => false, 'offset' => '', 'search' => '');
+		'description__like' => '', 'pad_counts' => false, 'offset' => '',
+		'search' => '');
 	$args = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults );
 	$args['number'] = absint( $args['number'] );
 	$args['offset'] = absint( $args['offset'] );
@@ -1253,6 +1257,9 @@
 	if ( !empty($name__like) )
 		$where .= " AND t.name LIKE '" . like_escape( $name__like ) . "%'";
 
+	if ( !empty($description__like) )
+		$where .= " AND tt.description LIKE '" . like_escape( $description__like ) . "%'";
+
 	if ( '' !== $parent ) {
 		$parent = (int) $parent;
 		$where .= " AND tt.parent = '$parent'";