The Latin search differs from most search engines on the web in that it looks for sequences of letters rather than words. For example, if you search for ros you will find not only all the inflected forms of rosa but also all words that include the letters ros: aegros, libros, scelerosum, morositatem, prospere, etc. A blank space in the middle of a sequence of letters is regarded as another letter. So if you search for rosa per, you will find puer in rosa perfusus liquidis along with perosa Persephone. You can indicate a word break at the beginning or end of a sequence of letters with the symbol #. If you search for #ros, you will find the forms of rosa, rostrum, etc., but not liberos, viros, or probrosus. #ros# will find only the word ros. The search is not case-sensitive, nor does it distinguish i from j or u from v.
You can join sequences of letters with logical operators to form more complex search patterns. For example, if you search for ornament ~ consular, you will find instances of consularia ornamenta as well as ornamentis consularibus. The operators are:
| ~ | near (within about 100 characters) |
| | | or |
| & | and |
The operator & refers to occurrences on the same page. Parentheses can be used to indicate logical precedence.
By default the Latin search scans the entire corpus of classical Latin literature. You can restrict the search to a set of authors or works by including a filter in your search pattern. Filters consist of author and work abbreviations enclosed within square brackets. For example, [Verg] arma virumque will find instances in Vergil only. [Verg Serv] arma virumque will search Vergil and Servius. Filters can specify particular works. [Ov:Met] arma will search Ovid's Metamorphoses for arma. [Ov:Met,Am] will search the Metamorphoses and the Amores. You can look up abbreviations in the Canon of Latin Authors, but if you simply start typing, the search window will try to supply the correct abbreviation.
As a shortcut, you can search for a word or phrase by double-clicking on it in a page of text. Holding the shift-key down while double-clicking will restrict the search to the current author. Holding the shift-key and the alt-key down will restrict the search to the current work.