Methods and apparatus are provided for performing spelling corrections using one or more variant hash tables. The spelling of at least one candidate word is corrected by obtaining at least one variant dictionary hash table based on variants of a set of known correctly spelled words, wherein the variants are obtained by applying one or more of a deletion, insertion, replacement, and transposition operation on the correctly spelled words; obtaining from the candidate word one or more lookup variants using one or more of the deletion, insertion, replacement, and transposition operations; evaluating one or more of the candidate word and the lookup variants against the at least one variant dictionary hash table; and indicating a candidate correction if there is at least one match in the at least one variant dictionary hash table.