---
title: Phonetic Text Search API
slug: phonetic-match
url: https://apyhub.com/apyhub/service/phonetic-match
provider: ApyHub
categories: [Data Validation, Developer Tools]
tags: [phonetic-matching, fuzzy-search, soundex, metaphone, deduplication]
auth: api_key
---

# Phonetic Text Search API

Compare a source word against candidate strings using Metaphone or Soundex. Returns matching words with shared phonetic codes for deduping and search.

## Endpoints

| Method | Path | Description | Atoms |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| POST | `` | What it does Matches a source word against a list of candidate words using a phonetic algorithm. It… | 25 |

## About

## What it does
Phonetic Matching compares a reference word against a list of candidate strings and returns the ones that sound alike. Send a `source`, a `candidates` array, and optionally choose `algorithm` as `metaphone` or `soundex`.

Use `metaphone` for Double Metaphone primary-code matching, or `soundex` for the standard Soundex algorithm. The response returns a `data` array of matches, with each item including the shared phonetic `code` and the matching `match` string.

This is useful when exact spelling is unreliable: deduplicating names, finding likely alternatives in search, or normalizing user-entered records where typos and transliterations are common. If you need to compare a single word against a curated candidate list and keep only the phonetically similar results, Phonetic Matching gives you a compact output you can filter directly.

## Usage

Authenticate with an ApyHub API key in the `apy-token` header.
Full docs and a live playground: https://apyhub.com/apyhub/service/phonetic-match