Finding Variations of a Word

You may use wildcard characters and truncation to search for variations of a word, making your search shorter and simpler.

Use an exclamation mark (!) to find a root word plus all the words made by adding letters to the end of it. For example, acqui! would find variations on the term acquire such as acquires, acquired, acquiring and acquisition.

Tip: Use ! only on unique roots; fir! will find fired, firing and fires, but will also find first, which you may not want.

Use an asterisk (*) to replace characters anywhere in a word, except the first character. Use one asterisk for each character you wish to replace.

Example: 
wom*n would find woman and women

int**net would find internet and intranet

Use the asterisk to hold a space for variations in spelling at any point in a word.

Example: p**rson would find both the ea and the ie spelling of the name
    
If you use asterisks at the end of a word, they do not all have to be filled, but may find up to the specified number of characters.

Example: transplant** would find transplant, transplanted, transplanter
    
Tip: transplant** does not find transplantation or transplanting because only two wildcard characters are used. To find all the variations of transplant, use the ! wildcard character instead of the asterisk.