How do I configure synonyms for the keyword part of hybrid search?

I’m migrating my search from typesense to weaviate’s hybrid search. Does weaviate support synonyms in the same way that typesense does? (Synonyms | Typesense)

I understand that semantic search reduces the need for synonyms, but in some cases such as abbreviations, synonyms are useful. For instance, “NASA” would be two-way synonym with “space agency” and “COVID” would be a two-way synonym with “Coronavirus disease”.

Are there other ways to work around my problem given that users tend to search using abbreviations?

1 Like

Hi @arshad172!

Weaviate currently does not offer support for synonyms, and we’re not sure yet if we will add this functionality. The main reason here is that we believe that the machine learning model used to create embeddings for vector search should take care of these synonyms.

I understand synonyms might help improve ranking with Hybrid Search, but we currently do not have a way to do this.

If you’d really like support for this, I’d suggest you create a GH issue explaining your use case.

I hope this helps!

1 Like