# What is the meaning of field^4 from scoring perspective? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [February 3, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-field-4-from-scoring-perspective/15567 "2014-02-03T19:04:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dark\_shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@dark\_shadow](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dark_shadow)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-field-4-from-scoring-perspective/15567/1 "2014-02-03T19:04:44Z")
Hi, I was going through the documentation of ES where they have mentioned that we can use boost for a certain field. Boosting Use the _boost_ operator ^ to make one term more relevant than another. For instance, if we want to find all documents about foxes, but we are especially interested in quick foxes: quick^2 fox The default boost value is 1, but can be any positive floating point number. Boosts between 0 and 1 reduce relevance. Boosts can also be applied to phrases or to groups: "john smith"^2 (foo bar)^4 My doubt is what is the meaning of ^2 means is it like multiplying by a factor of 2 or multiplying the whole document score by 2 ? Thanks -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/200b5523-8d4c-4b53-8333-b3a452954d32%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/200b5523-8d4c-4b53-8333-b3a452954d32%40googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-field-4-from-scoring-perspective/15567/2 "2014-02-06T09:19:46Z")
Hey, if you are interested in the background of this, a very useful link might be the explanation of tf-idf scoring in lucene at [https://lucene.apache.org/core/4\_0\_0/core/org/apache/lucene/search/similarities/TFIDFSimilarity.html](https://lucene.apache.org/core/4_0_0/core/org/apache/lucene/search/similarities/TFIDFSimilarity.html) The boost a term query boost and thus only applies to boost that term and not the whole document. You can take a look at the boost\_factor at the custom function score query, if this is not the desired behaviour > **[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale](https://www.elastic.co)** > > Power insights and outcomes with the Elasticsearch Platform and AI. See into your data and find answers that matter with enterprise solutions designed to help you build, observe, and protect. Try Elasticsearch free today. --Alex On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:04 PM, coder [mukulnitkkr@gmail.com](mailto:mukulnitkkr@gmail.com) wrote: > Hi, > > I was going through the documentation of ES where they have mentioned that > we can use boost for a certain field. > > Boosting > > Use the _boost_ operator ^ to make one term more relevant than another. > For instance, if we want to find all documents about foxes, but we are > especially interested in quick foxes: > > quick^2 fox > > The default boost value is 1, but can be any positive floating point > number. Boosts between 0 and 1 reduce relevance. > > Boosts can also be applied to phrases or to groups: > > "john smith"^2 (foo bar)^4 > > My doubt is what is the meaning of ^2 means is it like multiplying by a factor of 2 or multiplying the whole document score by 2 ? > > Thanks > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elasticsearch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). > To view this discussion on the web visit > [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/200b5523-8d4c-4b53-8333-b3a452954d32%40googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/200b5523-8d4c-4b53-8333-b3a452954d32%40googlegroups.com) > . > For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). To view this discussion on the web visit [https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAGCwEM\_CnpzwAQsTMxrzF3XqdCo1uF699%2BWLwQ69A6%3D1YQ7rCQ%40mail.gmail.com](https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elasticsearch/CAGCwEM_CnpzwAQsTMxrzF3XqdCo1uF699%2BWLwQ69A6%3D1YQ7rCQ%40mail.gmail.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**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, 1:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-field-4-from-scoring-perspective/15567/3 "2017-07-06T01:52:08Z")