Wildcards (truncation)
Wildcards (truncation characters) let you search for word roots, variations in spelling, many plural forms, etc.
Variable truncation: Use an asterisk (*). For example:
- sul*ur retrieves sulfur, sulphur
- cat* retrieves cat, cats, catalyst, catastrophe
A question mark (?) indicates exactly one variable character. For example:
- sulf?nyl retrieves records that contain words like 'sulfonyl' and 'sulfinyl'
- catheter? retrieves records that contain words like 'catheters', but not 'catheter' or 'catheterization'
Notes:
- For fastest system performance, specify at least two characters (e.g. ca*); searches with only one truncated character are processed very slowly.
- For best relevance, type at least three characters before truncating with *.
- Wildcards (truncation characters) are disabled within phrases (including mapped phrases); ‘heart infarction*’ yields 0 results