# Multimatch not working as expected, help needed

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multimatch-not-working-as-expected-help-needed/82641>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 17, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multimatch-not-working-as-expected-help-needed/82641 "2017-04-17T23:59:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Laura\_Cabre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@Laura\_Cabre](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Laura_Cabre)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multimatch-not-working-as-expected-help-needed/82641/1 "2017-04-17T23:59:16Z")

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Hi!

I am wondering why I am seeing the following (Elasticsearch V 5.1)

I have the following query.

{  
"multi\_match" : {  
"query" : "bli",  
"type" : "phrase\_prefix",  
"fields" : ["TITLE", "DESCR50", "NAMEFORMAL"]  
}  
}

I am able to find a document that contains "NAMEFORMAL" = "Marcus Bliss" , but a document with a "DESCR50" = "Public Work" is not returned. I have confirmed that such document exists and it can be found through other criteria. When creating the index, I did not specify any properties for such fields... so I would assume the would behave similarly... Any help with this would me much appreciated. Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [April 18, 2017, 8:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multimatch-not-working-as-expected-help-needed/82641/2 "2017-04-18T08:50:22Z")

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"bli" is a prefix of "bliss" but not of "public".

If you want in-word matching of this kind I suggest you look at ngram indexing - see [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/\_ngrams\_for\_partial\_matching.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/_ngrams_for_partial_matching.html)

This would mean the index doesn't just contain the word "public" but also word fragments ubli, blic, lic etc

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 9:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multimatch-not-working-as-expected-help-needed/82641/3 "2017-05-16T09:00:36Z")

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