NIST

double metaphone

(algorithm)

Definition: An algorithm to code English words (and foreign words often heard in the United States) phonetically by reducing them to 12 consonant sounds. This reduces matching problems from wrong spelling.

Generalization (I am a kind of ...)
phonetic coding algorithm.

See also Jaro-Winkler, Caverphone, NYSIIS, soundex, metaphone, Levenshtein distance.

Note: This is an improved version of metaphone. It returns two keys if a word has two feasible pronunciations, such as a foreign word.

Author: PEB

Implementation

Many metaphone and double metaphone (Basic, C, Perl, and C++) implementations. Apache codec implementations of soundex, Metaphone, and Double Metaphone (Java). applet for name lookup (Java).

More information

Lawrence Philips, The Double Metaphone Search Algorithm, C/C++ Users Journal, June 2000. on-line article accessed May 2011.


Go to the Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures home page.

If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul E. Black.

Entry modified 23 July 2012.
HTML page formatted Mon Jul 23 10:00:38 2012.

Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "double metaphone", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Paul E. Black, ed., U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. 23 July 2012. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/doubleMetaphone.html

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