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Phonetic Text Search API

Hosted on ApyHub

What it does

Phonetic Matching compares a reference word against a list of candidate strings and returns the ones that sound alike. Send a source, a candidates array, and optionally choose algorithm as metaphone or soundex.

Use metaphone for Double Metaphone primary-code matching, or soundex for the standard Soundex algorithm. The response returns a data array of matches, with each item including the shared phonetic code and the matching match string.

This is useful when exact spelling is unreliable: deduplicating names, finding likely alternatives in search, or normalizing user-entered records where typos and transliterations are common. If you need to compare a single word against a curated candidate list and keep only the phonetically similar results, Phonetic Matching gives you a compact output you can filter directly.

POST
Phonetic matching
https://api.eu.apyhub.com/apyhub/phonetic-match

QUICKSTART

GUIDE

Quickstart

Match a source word against a list of candidate spellings using the default phonetic algorithm.

curl -X POST "https://api.eu.apyhub.com/apyhub/phonetic-match" \
  -H "apy-token: $APY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"source":"smith","candidates":["smyth","smithe","jones","schmidt"]}'

What you'll get back

Returns a JSON object with a data array. Each item in the array is an object with code and match fields, where code is the phonetic code shared by the source word and the matching candidate.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "code": "SM0",
      "match": "smyth"
    },
    {
      "code": "SM0",
      "match": "smithe"
    }
  ]
}
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body*
The reference word to match against.
candidates*
metaphone (default) uses Double Metaphone primary code. soundex uses the standard Soundex algorithm.

About this endpoint

What it does

Matches a source word against a list of candidate words using a phonetic algorithm. It returns the candidates that share a phonetic code with the source, along with that shared code.

Request Body

ParameterTypeDescription
sourceStringThe reference word to match against.
algorithmENUMPhonetic algorithm to use: metaphone (default) or soundex.
candidatesString ArrayList of candidate words to compare against the source.

Response

Returns a JSON object with a data array field. Each item in the array is an object containing a code string and a match string. The code value is the phonetic code shared by the source and the matching candidate.

ParameterTypeDescription
dataObject ArrayArray of matched results. Each item contains:
- code: the phonetic code shared by source and this candidate
- match: the matching candidate word
▣ COMMON ERRORS

Errors any endpoint can return

400bad_request

Required parameter missing or malformed body.

401unauthorized

API key missing, revoked, or not authorized for this service.

429rate_limited

Your plan's per-second rate exceeded. Retry with exponential backoff.

503upstream_busy

Backend temporarily unavailable. Try again in a few seconds.

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