21. The system as recited in claim 16 , wherein the lexical distribution signature module is further configured to represent each of the candidates and the query string as separate vectors.
16. A system for fast translation memory search, comprising: a candidate module configured to identify a plurality of hypothesis strings stored in a translation memory as candidates to match a query string in response to the input query string; a string length signature module configured to eliminate one or more candidates, using a processor, where string lengths between the candidates and the query string are at least a cutoff value representing a string edit distance; a lexical distribution signature module configured to eliminate one or more candidates where differences in word frequency distributions between the candidates and the query string are at least the cutoff value; a dynamic programming module configured to eliminate one or more candidates by employing a dynamic programming matrix where string edit distances between the candidates and the query string are at least the cutoff value; and an output including a number of remaining candidates as matches to the query string.