---
title: Phrase Prefix
description: Finds documents containing a phrase followed by a term prefix
canonical: https://docs.paradedb.com/documentation/query-builder/phrase/phrase-prefix
---

Phrase prefix identifies documents containing a phrase followed by a term prefix.

```sql
SELECT description, rating, category
FROM mock_items
WHERE description @@@ pdb.phrase_prefix(ARRAY['running', 'sh']);
```

<div className="mt-8" />

<ParamField body="phrases" required>
  An `ARRAY` of tokens that the search is looking to match, followed by a term
  prefix rather than a complete term.
</ParamField>
<ParamField body="max_expansions" default={50}>
  Limits the number of term variations that the prefix can expand to during the
  search. This helps in controlling the breadth of the search by setting a cap
  on how many different terms the prefix can match.
</ParamField>

## Performance Considerations

Expanding a prefix might lead to thousands of matching terms, which impacts search times.

With `max_expansions`, the prefix term is expanded to at most `max_expansions` terms
in lexicographic order. For instance, if `sh` matches `shall`, `share`, `shoe`, and `shore` but `max_expansions` is set to 3,
`sh` will only be expanded to `shall`, `share`, and `shoe`.
