Span not query

The span_not query excludes spans that overlap with another span query. You can also specify the distance before or after the excluded spans within which matches cannot occur.

For example, you can use the span_not query to:

• Find terms except when they appear in certain phrases.
• Match spans unless they are near specific terms.
• Exclude matches that occur within a certain distance of other patterns.

Example

To try the examples in this section, complete the setup steps.

The following query searches for the word “dress” but not when it appears in the phrase “dress shirt”:

GET /clothing/_search
{
  "query": {
    "span_not": {
      "include": {
        "span_term": {
          "description": "dress"
        }
      },
      "exclude": {
        "span_near": {
          "clauses": [
            {
              "span_term": {
                "description": "dress"
              }
            },
            {
              "span_term": {
                "description": "shirt"
              }
            }
          ],
          "slop": 0,
          "in_order": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The query matches document 2 because it contains the word “dress” (“Beautiful long dress…”). Document 1 is not matched because it contains the phrase “dress shirt”, which is excluded. Documents 3 and 4 are not matched because they contain variations of the word “dress” (“dressed” and “dresses”), and the query is searching the raw field.

Parameters

The following table lists all top-level parameters supported by span_not queries.