Truncation and masking
Various forms of a word or term with different endings may be suitable for us (e.g. communicable, communication, etc.). In this case the ending may be substitued by the symbols % or * after the first characters (e.g. communi% or communi*).
Masking is used if we wanted to substitue a character in the middle of a word, e.g. because it may occur with different spelling (e.g. in the case of foreign terms), or we would like to search for two different words (e.g. makro, mikro). In the MATARKA database you may substitue one or more characters (e.g. if you search for deve*pment you will retrieve hits with: development, developmental, etc.).