The Stemming and Thesaurus features enable keyword search query terms or phrases to match alternate forms of the query terms or phrases:
Stemming enables the MDEX engine to consider alternate forms of individual words as equivalent for the purpose of search query matching. For example, it is often desirable for singular nouns to match their plural forms in the searchable text, and vice versa.
Thesaurus enables the MDEX engine to match words or phrases in user queries to synonymous or related words or phrases. For example, a thesaurus entry can allow searches for Mark Twain to match text containing the phrase Samuel Clemens.
Both the Thesaurus and Stemming features rely on defining equivalent textual forms that are used to match user queries to searchable text data. Because these features are based on similar concepts, and because they are typically configured to operate in conjunction to achieve desired query matching effects, both features and their interactions are discussed in one section.
