1. In an electronic device, a method for reducing a set of strings to approximately match to a first string by determining an edit distance between the first string and the set of strings is within a predetermined threshold, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a request to approximately match a first string with a set of strings using a predetermined edit distance; (b) generating a difference histogram based on a distribution of a difference in a number of occurrences of each character in the first string and a second string of the set of strings; (c) determining via the difference histogram a first count of the number of occurrences of each character of the first string not in the second string is greater than a predetermined threshold; and (d) identifying the second string as having an edit distance greater than the predetermined edit distance in response to the determination.