Techniques for recognizing multiple patterns within a string of characters are presented. A dictionary is hierarchically organized, such that leaf nodes within the dictionary represents words defined in the dictionary. A string of characters are received. Each character within the string is traversed by attempting to match it with a character defined in the dictionary. As long as a match continues with the dictionary the characters within the string are traversed. Once a longest possible match to a word within the dictionary is found, the next character following the last matched character for the string is processed.