# Avoiding stop word results

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/avoiding-stop-word-results/6922>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 6, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/avoiding-stop-word-results/6922 "2012-03-06T20:25:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![drahmel7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/drahmel7/32/2967_2.png) [@drahmel7](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/drahmel7)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/avoiding-stop-word-results/6922/1 "2012-03-06T20:25:50Z")

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I had a query that was getting some strange results and I believe it  
was caused by a stop word. The query looks like this:

[http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype/\_search?q=(is\_video:1%20AND%20title\_kw:will%20)&pretty=1](http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype/_search?q=%28is_video:1%20AND%20title_kw:will%20%29&pretty=1)

This returns 166K results. If I just do +title\_kw:will -- then it  
properly returns zero results (there are no videos with "will" in the  
title).

This query works properly if the title\_kw is something like "meat"  
which returns 32 articles.

However, if I do the same query with title\_kw:the -- then it returns  
the same 166K results as "will".

This makes me think "will" is a stop word and it is being presumed to  
be true in a boolean search.

Is this a correct assumption? Is there any way to query ES for the  
stop word list?

If this is true, can you do this query somehow to avoid the huge non-  
relevant response?

Dan Rahmel  
[http://www.socialtodolist.com](http://www.socialtodolist.com)

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**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/avoiding-stop-word-results/6922/2 "2012-03-07T11:12:27Z")

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Yes, will is a stop word. Here is the list of default english stopwords:

"a", "an", "and", "are", "as", "at", "be", "but", "by",  
"for", "if", "in", "into", "is", "it",  
"no", "not", "of", "on", "or", "such",  
"that", "the", "their", "then", "there", "these",  
"they", "this", "to", "was", "will", "with"

On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 10:25 PM, danr wrote:

> I had a query that was getting some strange results and I believe it  
> was caused by a stop word. The query looks like this:
> 
> [http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype/\_search?q=(is\_video:1%20AND%20title\_kw:will%20)&pretty=1](http://localhost:9200/myindex/mytype/_search?q=%28is_video:1%20AND%20title_kw:will%20%29&pretty=1)
> 
> This returns 166K results. If I just do +title\_kw:will -- then it  
> properly returns zero results (there are no videos with "will" in the  
> title).
> 
> This query works properly if the title\_kw is something like "meat"  
> which returns 32 articles.
> 
> However, if I do the same query with title\_kw:the -- then it returns  
> the same 166K results as "will".
> 
> This makes me think "will" is a stop word and it is being presumed to  
> be true in a boolean search.
> 
> Is this a correct assumption? Is there any way to query ES for the  
> stop word list?
> 
> If this is true, can you do this query somehow to avoid the huge non-  
> relevant response?
> 
> Dan Rahmel  
> [http://www.socialtodolist.com](http://www.socialtodolist.com)

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/avoiding-stop-word-results/6922/3 "2017-07-06T03:36:56Z")

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