GET /espell.fcgi

nih.gov:ncbi-e-utilities

Summary: Check spelling and suggest corrections
Operation ID: espell
Auth: unknown
Description

ESpell retrieves spelling suggestions for a query. ESpell retrieves spelling suggestions for terms within a specified database.

Parameters (4)

api_key (string, query, optional)

NCBI API key for higher rate limits

db (string, query, required)

Database to search

Constraints: {'enum': ['pubmed', 'pmc', 'protein', 'nuccore', 'nucleotide', 'gene', 'mesh', 'books']}

retmode (string, query, optional)

Return mode. Use 'json' for JSON output, 'xml' for XML output.

Constraints: {'enum': ['xml', 'json']}

term (string, query, required)

Entrez text query

Examples (3)

TitleTypeURLAction
Basic spelling suggestion in PubMed (JSON) curl https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/espell.fcgi?db=pubmed&term=asthmaa&retmode=json
Spelling suggestion in protein database (XML) curl https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/espell.fcgi?db=protein&term=insuline&retmode=xml
Spelling suggestion in nucleotide database curl https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/espell.fcgi?db=nucleotide&term=brca1a&retmode=json

Probe History

Latency

Status Codes

TimeStatusLatencySize
2026-03-23 10:25:51.506119 500 355ms
2026-03-23 09:49:52.422179 200 340ms
2026-03-23 09:02:44.560754 500 342ms

Response Changes

WhenOldNew
2026-03-23 09:49:52.422179 e3b0c44298fc 52afcc2b8aeb
2026-03-23 10:25:51.506119 52afcc2b8aeb e3b0c44298fc