Wild Cards

Wild cards can substitute for characters in the text entry box. With wild cards you can find multiple roots or synonyms with one entry.

The two wild card characters are

* substitutes for any number (including zero) of characters

? substitutes for exactly one character

You can use up to eight * in one search. You can use any number of ? in one search. You can mix * and ? in one search. An example of acceptable wild card use is a*b?c*d, which finds abscond, absconded and ascorbic acid among the roots. Wild cards work with both Find In Root Words and Phrases and Find Roots With This Synonym buttons.

Try ??tion to find words that start with any two characters and end with tion. Try *tion to find all words that end in tion. Also see Interesting Searches for more wild card examples.