L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #267 Unit of search and proximity in a Search

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,405
edited November 21 in English Forum

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10+ Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application.

This tip is inspired by the forum post: "SEARCH WITHIN" limits - Logos Forums

NOTE: In Logos 10, one has the option of chapter or verse in the Bible and Morph searches. You no longer need to switch to a basic search. 

This means that standard practice from a year ago still works but is no longer necessary. Where Andrew and Dave say "verse" below, you now can choose "chapter" or "verse". And where Dave says you can select the number, it is still true but the selection is on the form option of the morph search.

Bible and Morph searches can only compare terms within the same verse. If you want to deal with things at a chapter level, then you will want to do a Basic search instead.

This search should do the trick: <Lemma = lbs/he/רֵאשִׁית> AND <Lemma = lbs/he/בִּכּוּרִים>

Or use WITHIN 1000 WORDS instead of AND if you want a narrower proximity than the entire chapter.


In most searches you will specify Proximity and Range.

  • Proximity specifies how close you want the terms to be, usually specified as a number of Words e.g. (lemma1 WITHIN 50 WORDS lemma2)
    • AND says I don't care how far apart they are
  • Range is what you stated as it restricts the search to certain parts of the resource rather than All Passages.

But there are implied Boundaries which restrict results to certain textual limits:

  • For Bible & Morph Search, the results have to be in the same Verse
  • For Basic Search, the results have to be in the same Article, where Article = Chapter for most Bibles.
  • For Clause Search, the results have to be in the same Clause
  • For Morph Query, you can actually select the number of Verses (1 or more)

A Proximity of 1000 WORDS for a Bible Search does not make much sense as the results will always be restricted by the actual number of words in a given Verse. So It makes more sense to use that in a Basic Search of a bible.

Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

Tagged: