You are here: Home » About the OED » About OED Online » Tour of OED Online » Proximity search » Expanded
Search the site | Contact us
Tour: Beyond words

Proximity search

[Document index]   [Previous]Specific search step 15 of 37 Phrase search[Next]

Suppose the 'ghost' you wanted was the poem The Ghost by Charles Churchill.

Rather than skimming hundreds of results to find the ones you want, you can simply perform a more specific search. By selecting More Options, you make available the proximity search controls.

[Image of Simple Search form showing proximity search options]

These give you the ability to search for two items and express a relationship between them. Here you can make your search more specific by searching for 'ghost' after 'churchill', and within a chosen number of words - '2 words or fewer' would be appropriate here.

You need to choose the larger area of the whole quotation from the pull-down list, since your search terms appear in different parts of the quotation.

This time, the results are all examples of quotations from Churchill's poem.

Image of results list for proximity search
[shrink]

Clicking on any of the highlighted matches takes you straight to its occurrence in an entry.

Image of the entry 'astrologic' with matched words highlighted
[shrink]
[Document index]   [Previous]Specific search step 15 of 37 Phrase search[Next]