title: What is the difference between stemming and synonyms in Amazon CloudSearch?
body: <p>I'm currently looking at how we can tailor a cloudsearch analysis scheme to provide more relevant search results. (I think) I understand the conceptual difference between a stem and a synonym. Stems are either derivatives, like "walk, walking, walked", or depluralisations like "Company, Companies", that you might want to treat as the same term from a search point of view.  Synonyms are of course just words that have the same meaning (or meaning that's close enough that users might mix and match the terms), like perhaps "Company, Enterprise, Business", or "Email, Message".</p>
  
  <p><em>Please correct me on the above if I'm wrong.</em></p>
  
  <p>I'm more wondering, from a functional point of view, when an index is built and a search is performed, how is a stem treated differently to a synonym? Could I have my derivatives like "walk, walking, walked" in my synonyms list and have no difference in functionality?</p>