diff --git a/examples/multi_word_matches.py b/examples/multi_word_matches.py
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/examples/multi_word_matches.py
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+"""Match a large set of multi-word expressions in O(1) time.
+
+The idea is to associate each word in the vocabulary with a tag, noting whether
+they begin, end, or are inside at least one pattern. An additional tag is used
+for single-word patterns. Complete patterns are also stored in a hash set.
+
+When we process a document, we look up the words in the vocabulary, to associate
+the words with the tags.  We then search for tag-sequences that correspond to
+valid candidates. Finally, we look up the candidates in the hash set.
+
+For instance, to search for the phrases "Barack Hussein Obama" and "Hilary Clinton", we
+would associate "Barack" and "Hilary" with the B tag, Hussein with the I tag,
+and Obama and Clinton with the L tag.
+
+The document "Barack Clinton and Hilary Clinton" would have the tag sequence
+[{B}, {L}, {}, {B}, {L}], so we'd get two matches. However, only the second candidate
+is in the phrase dictionary, so only one is returned as a match.
+
+The algorithm is O(n) at run-time for document of length n because we're only ever
+matching over the tag patterns. So no matter how many phrases we're looking for,
+our pattern set stays very small (exact size depends on the maximum length we're
+looking for, as the query language currently has no quantifiers)
+"""
+from __future__ import print_function, unicode_literals, division
+
+import plac
+
+from preshed.maps import PreshMap
+from spacy.strings import hash_string
+from spacy.en import English
+from spacy.matcher import Matcher
+
+from spacy.attrs import FLAG63 as U_ENT
+from spacy.attrs import FLAG62 as L_ENT
+from spacy.attrs import FLAG61 as I_ENT
+from spacy.attrs import FLAG60 as B_ENT
+
+
+def get_bilou(length):
+    if length == 1:
+        return [U_ENT]
+    else:
+        return [B_ENT] + [I_ENT] * (length - 2) + [L_ENT]
+
+
+def make_matcher(vocab, max_length):
+    abstract_patterns = []
+    for length in range(1, max_length+1):
+        abstract_patterns.append([{tag: True} for tag in get_bilou(length)])
+    return Matcher(vocab, {'Candidate': ('CAND', {}, abstract_patterns)})
+
+
+def get_matches(matcher, pattern_ids, doc):
+    matches = []
+    for label, start, end in matcher(doc):
+        candidate = doc[start : end]
+        if pattern_ids[hash_string(candidate.text)] == True:
+            start = candidate[0].idx
+            end = candidate[-1].idx + len(candidate[-1])
+            matches.append((start, end, candidate.root.tag_, candidate.text))
+    return matches
+
+
+def merge_matches(doc, matches):
+    for start, end, tag, text in matches:
+        doc.merge(start, end, tag, text, 'MWE')
+
+
+def main():
+    nlp = English(parser=False, tagger=False, entity=False)
+
+    gazetteer = [u'M.I.A.', 'Shiny Happy People', 'James E. Jones']
+    example_text = u'The artist M.I.A. did a cover of Shiny Happy People. People is not an entity.'
+    pattern_ids = PreshMap()
+    max_length = 0
+    for pattern_str in gazetteer:
+        pattern = nlp.tokenizer(pattern_str)
+        bilou_tags = get_bilou(len(pattern))
+        for word, tag in zip(pattern, bilou_tags):
+            lexeme = nlp.vocab[word.orth]
+            lexeme.set_flag(tag, True)
+        pattern_ids[hash_string(pattern.text)] = True
+        max_length = max(max_length, len(pattern))
+
+    matcher = make_matcher(nlp.vocab, max_length)
+
+    doc = nlp(example_text)
+    matches = get_matches(matcher, pattern_ids, doc)
+    merge_matches(doc, matches)
+    for token in doc:
+        print(token.text, token.ent_type_)
+    
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    plac.call(main)