1. A search system for searching for electronic documents, and providing a search result in response to a search query, comprising: a processor; a database, wherein terms in the database are grouped in a cluster based on the terms belonging to a same word sense; a user interface module adapted to receive a search query from a user, said search query having at least one search query term; a query processing module that automatically determines a single, assumed word sense for the at least one search query term selected from a list of retrieved senses for the search query term, and wherein said user interface module is adapted to display alternative senses in which said search query term is used that are different from and exclusive of the single assumed word sense, and to allow the user to select at least one of the alternative word senses, and wherein the query processing module identifies a plurality of any available alternative terms from a cluster based on the sense selected by the user, wherein the alternative terms include any available synonyms that are within the sense selected by the user; a search engine that electronically searches for electronic documents that satisfy said at least one search query term and said plurality of any available alternative terms; and wherein said user interface module is further adapted to display search results received from the search engine.
5. The search system of claim 1 , wherein said cluster is a collection of words grouped together based on having similar usage patterns.