{
  "definition": "A broad term for search intended to retrieve according to meaning or semantic relatedness rather than relying only on literal lexical overlap.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "target": "dense-passage-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "id": "semantic-search",
  "kind": "GeneralConcept",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-12T21:39:00Z",
  "prefLabel": "Semantic Search",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "note": "Semantic search may use dense retrieval, but it is a broader product or intent concept rather than a specific representation family.",
      "target": "dense-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Semantic search describes meaning-oriented retrieval; vector search describes a mechanism based on vector similarity.",
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "dense-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "hybrid-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "learned-sparse-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/semantic-search/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/semantic-search.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/semantic-search.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "Semantic search does not denote one retrieval algorithm or representation. Dense retrieval, learned sparse retrieval, entity-based methods, query expansion, and hybrid retrieval may all contribute to systems described as semantic search.",
  "status": "published",
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/semantic-search/"
}