# Elasticsearch - Why does Elastic does not support Phrase with fuzziness

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 27, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205 "2018-12-27T06:26:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nikesh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nikesh/32/86579_2.png) [@Nikesh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nikesh)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205/1 "2018-12-27T06:26:48Z")

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Hi,  
I have done sufficient research for applying fuzziness to a phrase but ended up with nothing. I also find few MNC's that use Elasticsearch also fail to apply fuzziness to a phrase. Athough, I can achieve this by span queries. It fails to do so when i have to mention over 100 fields as it has to be iterated over my service layer. Like I see, this would be one of the demands by most of the clients. i wonder why Elastic doesn't support this feature. Is there a specific reason or Am I missing something?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![Nikesh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nikesh/32/86579_2.png) [@Nikesh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nikesh)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2019, 12:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205/2 "2019-01-02T12:34:20Z")

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@elastic

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**Author:** ![Nikesh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nikesh/32/86579_2.png) [@Nikesh](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nikesh)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2019, 12:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205/3 "2019-01-02T12:34:38Z")

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@kimchy

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**Author:** ![Mark\_Harwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mark_harwood/32/10538_2.png) [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205/4 "2019-01-15T16:42:30Z")

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> [@Nikesh](#):
>
> i wonder why Elastic doesn't support this feature.

The short answer is because that it can be very expensive to run.  
As suggested [here](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/complexphrasequeryparser-part-of-lucene-but-not-elasticsearch/9050), ComplexPhraseQuery is the Lucene query type that can support it but you'd need to write a plugin to expose in elasticsearch.

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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:** [February 12, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-why-does-elastic-does-not-support-phrase-with-fuzziness/162205/5 "2019-02-12T16:42:36Z")

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