1. Apparatus for recognizing an input word as one of a set of reference words comprising means for storing a plurality of reference word feature templates representative of said reference words; means responsive to said input word for generating an input word feature template; means responsive to said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template for identifying said input word as one of said reference words, characterized in that said input word identifying means (100) comprises means (105,200) responsive to said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template for generating a set of word distance signals; said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template each have a plurality of frames; said means for generating a set of word distance signals comprises means responsive to said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template for generating a set of frame distance signals representative of the similarity between frames of said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template, and means for combining said frame distance signals to produce said word distance signals; means (105, 200, 500) responsive to said reference word feature templates and said input word feature template for generating a set of weighted word distance signals; and means (300, 400) responsive to said word distance signals and said weighted word distance signals for selecting the reference word which most corresponds to said input word.