A near-synonym generating method generates near-synonyms of a target character string by retrieving a near-synonym file based on the target character string, where the near-synonym file defines near- synonyms for one or a plurality of words. The near-synonym generating method includes the steps of (a) retrieving the near-synonym file using words which form the target character string as keys, and extracting near- synonyms which are defined for each of the words used as the keys as the near-synonyms for each of the words forming the target character string, (b) forming a near-synonym group from each of the words forming the target character string and the corresponding near-synonyms so as to form a plurality of such near-synonym groups, and selecting the words or near- synonyms from each of the near-synonym groups, and (c) generating the near-synonyms of the target character string by combining the selected words or near- synonyms obtained by the step (b) in an order which is different from the order of the words forming the target character string.
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