Sparse Retrieval
Also called: Keyword Search, Lexical Search
A search technique that uses term frequency and keyword matching, such as BM25, to locate relevant documents within a corpus.
Explore more about Knowledge Retrieval
Related terms
A retrieval technique that uses dense vector embeddings to identify semantically relevant documents based on similarity in an embedding space.
Lexical SearchA search method that retrieves documents by matching query terms against exact words, tokens, or linguistic forms in indexed content.
Hybrid SearchA retrieval technique that combines semantic vector search with keyword-based lexical search to improve the relevance, accuracy, and recall of retrieved information by leveraging the strengths of both approaches.
RetrieverA system component responsible for fetching relevant documents or passages from a knowledge base given a query.
Retrieval-Augmented GenerationRAGAn architectural pattern that enhances generative model responses by retrieving relevant information from external knowledge bases.