How Do I Search for Variations of Words?

The information in this article applies to the following LexisNexis^® products and services: Lexis+^®, Lexis^®, Practical Guidance, Lexis^® Tax

When you run your search, a built-in feature automatically find various forms of some words. There are also times in your research where you want to find variations of root words or the service does not find variations of the term you want to use.

The following sections include information about finding variations of words. These features work in Natural Language and Terms and Connectors searches.
 

Stemming

The stemming of terms means the service looks for plurals and other forms of terms automatically without the use of a wildcard or connector.

The following list contains some examples:

• dog bite finds dog bite, dog bites, dog biting, and dog bitten
• investigates finds investigate, investigates, investigating, investigated and investigation
• officer finds officer, officers, officer's and officers'
• ox finds oxen
• woman finds women

 

If you want to find only the singular of a term or only one form of the word, enter the term in quotation marks. The following list contains some examples:

• "amend" does not find amendment or amending
• "worker compensation" does not find workers compensation
• "Williams" does not find William

Note: When you use quotation marks, the service finds what is in the quotation marks as a phrase. You can use any !, *, or ? wildcards to find variations of the terms you include in the quotation marks.

There are some plurals the service does not find. For example, money does not find monies.
 

Exclamation Mark (!) and Asterisk ( * )

Use the exclamation mark to find a root word plus all words you can create by adding characters to the end of the root word. You must enter at least 3 characters with
the ! to use this feature. If you use less than 3 characters, the service ignores the ! and only searches for the 1 or 2 character word. 
Note: This character limit also applies to codes sections, e.g., searching for 47! does not find 471 and 408.47! does not find 408.471 because there are only 2 characters after the period in the section number.

You can use the asterisk as an alternative to the exclamation mark.

The ! or * is best used with unique roots. For example, if you want to find documents that discuss someone being fired, the search fir! finds fire, firing, and fired, but the search also finds first, which you may not want.

You can also use the ! or * in the middle of a word to find multiple letters. For example, sp!t finds words including sprint, spirit, specialist, and spreadsheet.

Question Mark ( ? )

Use the question mark to find a single character in a word, except the first character. The ? represents a character, not a blank space. You must enter at least 3 characters with the ? to use this feature. If you use less than 3 characters, the service ignores the ? and only searches for the 1 or 2 character word.

For example, wom?n finds woman or women.

In a Terms and Connectors search, you can use the ? in the middle or at the end of a word.

In a Natural Language search, you can use the ? in the middle or end of a word, however, if the last character in the entire search query is a ?, the ? is ignored.

When you use the ?, the service only retrieves items when the service finds a character for that space. For example:

• po?t finds port, but does not find pot
• not? finds note, but does not find not