You can use placeholders to search for terms with variable characters. For example, a word with various endings (table, tables, tablecloth) or words with different spellings (colour, color). You can position the placeholders at the start, at the end or in the middle of a word or in several positions in a word. 

The options are:
 

? for exactly one character
* for any number of characters (including zero)

If you search for several terms in the database, these will be connected by OR by default. Each result will contain at least one of these search terms. 

The search operator AND 

If you combine search terms by using AND, you will find all results that contain those two search terms. You can also place a + (without a space) before compulsory search terms.

The search operator NOT 

If you want to exclude search results containing specific terms, please combine the terms to be excluded by using NOT or by prefixing them with a minus sign (without a space). 
 

If you want to search for exact word/character sequences, place them in double quotation marks. You will only obtain search results in which the word sequences exactly match what you entered.

Place the tilde symbol (~) at the end of a word to perform a fuzzy search, i.e. to search for similar terms. You will find character sequences that vary from your term by up to two operations (insertion, deletion or substitution of a letter).

Example: a search for spot~ will find spit (o is replaced by i – varies by one operation) and pet (s deleted and o is replaced by e). 

Use ~1 to allow terms to only differ by one operation (insertion, deletion or substitution of a letter) – and thus to obtain fewer results.  

Keyboard shortcuts for the tilde symbol: for Windows Alt Gr and ^, for Mac OS Alt and N, for Linux Alt GR and +, each followed by a space or 1.