A computer-implemented method, computer-readable media, and a computerized system to compress words are provided. The computerized system includes a compression engine that compresses a list of words. The compression engine generates a symbol list from the list of words, decomposes the words using the symbol list and a cost function, and encodes the decomposed words. The words may be from a search index. The compression engine may be utilized to reduce the size of the search index and improve efficiency.