Google-search – How to search for words with the same suffix on Google

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I thought it was possible by using the asterisk but that returns no result.

Example: a search for Brunswick, Eastwick, Westwick, Candlewick, or any other word that ends in "wick". *wick does not work.

Best Answer

Alternative approaches are necessary because Google's search index does not accommodate such granularity. The smallest indexed unit is effectively a "word" - characters between spaces. The first entry in the tag wiki for for example (at present) is:

To search for a keywords that are special characters: "Generally, punctuation is ignored, including @#$%^&*()=+[]\ and other special characters" -Franck Dernoncourt.

An asterisk is just that, not a wild card (unless the asterisk itself is a "word" - eg see).

Searching for say back with *ack or * ack or * ack* etc essentially is pointless and each version offers very similar results.

However, through Google Search you might arrive at a Crossword Solver site. One I tried offered:

8 letter: Herdwick, Pickwick
9 letter: Bailiwick, Brunswick, Kennewick
10 letter: Candlewick, Cottonwick
11 letter: Bailiffwick, Sheriffwick

which at least is two of your four examples, and seven others.

Those other two look like place names, so you might use Google Search to find a gazetteer. For USA seems promising, though one I found is broken down by state. For Texas a download of Places followed by an Excel search (and a little processing) yielded:

Barwick
Berwick
Bostwick
Brunswick
Candlewick
Chadwick
Cheswick
Fenwick
Hardwick
Hartwick
Harwick
Howardwick
Kennewick
Keswick
Kimmswick
Pemberwick
Raywick
Renwick
Sedgwick
Waldwick
Warwick

Again not the other two of your examples but might help to illustrate the problems Google would have were it to allow wildcard searches. There are just too many possibilities without any context to narrow these down (for example country and/or state).

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