The thesaurus operator searches for documents containing a synonym for a search element. For example, you might perform a search using the word “dog,” looking for documents that use any of its synonyms (“canine,” “pooch,” “pup,” “watchdog,” and so on). Each result is relevance-ranked.
The Enhanced Full-Text Search engine supplies a default thesaurus. You can also create a custom thesaurus. See “Creating a custom thesaurus”.
The following example uses the thesaurus operator to find a result set that contains synonyms for the word “crave.” The first document is selected because it contains the word “want;” the second, because it contains the word “hunger:”
select t2.copy from i_blurbs t1, blurbs t2 where t1.id=t2.id and t1.index_any = "<thesaurus>(crave)"
score copy
----- -----------------------------------------------------------
78 They asked me to write about myself and my book, so here
goes: I started a restaurant called "de Gustibus" with two
. . .
of restaurant over another, when what they really want is a
. . .
78 A chef’s chef and a raconteur’s raconteur, Reginald
Blotchet-Halls calls London his second home. "Th’ palace
. . .
his equal skill in satisfying our perpetual hunger for
. . .