---
title: Are queries case-sensitive?
slug: '3074'
canonical_url: https://docs.coveo.com/en/3074/
collection: searching-with-coveo
source_format: adoc
---
# Are queries case-sensitive?
Coveo [queries](https://docs.coveo.com/en/231/) aren't case-sensitive as you can't find only the [items](https://docs.coveo.com/en/210/) containing a specific casing variant of a term.

However, the unified [index](https://docs.coveo.com/en/204/) records which items contain casing variants of terms (first, all, or some letters in uppercase).
When you search for a specific casing variant of a term, the search results include all casing variants of the searched term, but the results containing the casing variant you're searching for are [ranked higher](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1624/).

> **Tip**
>
> Because by default queries are expanded using [stemming](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1576/), returned items also include related terms sharing the same root.
> To reduce the number of results, you can however disable the stemming expansion using the [exact term prefix (+)](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1815/) in front of your casing variant term so that the search results only return items containing casing variants of the term, not those containing the other terms sharing the same stem.