# Fuzziness and Levenstein distance

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** eql-elastic-query-language\
**Created:** [January 26, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885 "2024-01-26T14:13:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@alba](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alba)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885/1 "2024-01-26T14:13:46Z")

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Hi guys,  
I have a multi\_match query with "fuzziness" : 2. When I search for "mexico" I get results with "medical" which have Levenstein distance 3 to "mexico".  
Could somebody explain it to me?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 3:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885/2 "2024-01-26T15:15:47Z")

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Which version of Elasticsearch are you using?

What is the mapping of the field you are querying? Are you by any chance querying any field that has an analyzer that uses a stemmer of some kind?

What does the query look like?

Can you share a document that incorrectly matches?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@alba](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alba)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885/3 "2024-01-26T17:46:15Z")

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Thanks for your answer. I use ES8 and you are right I use 'english stemmer' and 'english possesive stemmer'. Now I understand the search result. Thanks again.

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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 23, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/fuzziness-and-levenstein-distance/351885/4 "2024-02-23T17:46:32Z")

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