---
title: "ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY"
id: sql-altertsdictionary
pg_version: "20devel"
---

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# ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY — change the definition of a text search dictionary

## Synopsis

```
ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY name (
    option [ = value ] [, ... ]
)
ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY name RENAME TO new_name
ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY name OWNER TO { new_owner | CURRENT_ROLE | CURRENT_USER | SESSION_USER }
ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY name SET SCHEMA new_schema
```

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## Description

`ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY` changes the definition of a text search dictionary. You can change the dictionary's template-specific options, or change the dictionary's name or owner. 

You must be the owner of the dictionary to use `ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY`. 

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## Parameters

**`name`**

 The name (optionally schema-qualified) of an existing text search dictionary. **`option`**

 The name of a template-specific option to be set for this dictionary. **`value`**

 The new value to use for a template-specific option. If the equal sign and value are omitted, then any previous setting for the option is removed from the dictionary, allowing the default to be used. **`new_name`**

 The new name of the text search dictionary. **`new_owner`**

 The new owner of the text search dictionary. **`new_schema`**

 The new schema for the text search dictionary. Template-specific options can appear in any order. 

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## Examples

The following example command changes the stopword list for a Snowball-based dictionary. Other parameters remain unchanged. 


ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY my_dict ( StopWords = newrussian );
The following example command changes the language option to `dutch`, and removes the stopword option entirely. 


ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY my_dict ( language = dutch, StopWords );
The following example command "updates" the dictionary's definition without actually changing anything. 
ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY my_dict ( dummy );
 (The reason this works is that the option removal code doesn't complain if there is no such option.) This trick is useful when changing configuration files for the dictionary: the `ALTER` will force existing database sessions to re-read the configuration files, which otherwise they would never do if they had read them earlier. 

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## Compatibility

There is no `ALTER TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY` statement in the SQL standard. 

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## See Also

[CREATE TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY](sql-createtsdictionary.md), [DROP TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY](sql-droptsdictionary.md)