Truncation: This search technique refers to the ability to search just a portion of a word. Typically, a symbol such as the asterisk is used to represent the rest of the term. End truncation is where several letters at the beginning of a word are specified but the ending can vary. With internal truncation, a symbol can represent one or more characters within a word.

Stemming: Related to truncation, it usually refers to the ability of a search engine to find word variants such as plurals, singular forms, past tense, present tense, etc. Some stemming only cover plural and singular forms.

End Truncation Examples: colleg* finds college, colleges, collegium, collegial
Internal Truncation Examples: col*r finds color, colour, colander
Stemming: lights finds light, lights, lighting, lit