diff --git a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
index 7e04f4609..e57f79186 100644
--- a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
+++ b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from libc.string cimport memset, memcmp
 from cymem.cymem cimport Pool
 from murmurhash.mrmr cimport hash64
 
+from math import ceil
 import re
 import srsly
 import warnings
@@ -32,14 +33,13 @@ from .levenshtein import levenshtein
 DEF PADDING = 5
 
 
-cpdef bint fuzzy_compare(s1: str, s2: str, fuzzy: int = -1):
-    distance = min(len(s1), len(s2))
-    distance -= 1 # don't allow completely different tokens
-    if fuzzy == -1: # FUZZY operator with unspecified fuzzy
-        fuzzy = 5 # default max fuzzy
-        distance -= 1 # be more restrictive
-    distance = min(fuzzy, distance if distance > 0 else 1)
-    return levenshtein(s1, s2, distance) <= distance
+cpdef bint fuzzy_compare(input_text: str, pattern_text: str, fuzzy: int = -1):
+    if fuzzy >= 0:
+        max_edits = fuzzy
+    else:
+        # allow at least one edit and up to 20% of the pattern string length
+        max_edits = ceil(0.2 * len(pattern_text))
+    return levenshtein(input_text, pattern_text, max_edits) <= max_edits
 
 
 @registry.misc("spacy.fuzzy_compare.v1")
diff --git a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_levenshtein.py b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_levenshtein.py
index 75e2eda13..c4001bba1 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_levenshtein.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_levenshtein.py
@@ -56,19 +56,18 @@ def test_levenshtein(dist, a, b):
         ("a", "ab", -1, True),
         ("ab", "ac", 1, True),
         ("ab", "ac", -1, True),
-        ("abc", "cde", 4, False),  # 4 reduced because of token length
+        ("abc", "cde", 4, True),
         ("abc", "cde", -1, False),
-        ("abcdef", "cdefgh", 4, True),  # 4 not reduced because of token length
+        ("abcdef", "cdefgh", 4, True),
         ("abcdef", "cdefgh", 3, False),
-        ("abcdef", "cdefgh", -1, True),  # default equivalent to 4
+        ("abcdef", "cdefgh", -1, False),  # default (2 for length 6)
         ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijk", 5, True),
         ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijk", 4, False),
-        ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijk", -1, True),  # default equivalent to 5
+        ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijk", -1, False),  # default (2)
         ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijkl", 6, True),
         ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijkl", 5, False),
-        ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijkl", -1, False),  # default equivalent to 5 (max)
+        ("abcdefgh", "cdefghijkl", -1, False),  # default (2)
     ],
 )
 def test_fuzzy_compare(a, b, fuzzy, expected):
     assert fuzzy_compare(a, b, fuzzy) == expected
-    assert fuzzy_compare(b, a, fuzzy) == expected