diff --git a/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/index/CombinedIndexReader.java b/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/index/CombinedIndexReader.java
index de52d1c5..216192cf 100644
--- a/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/index/CombinedIndexReader.java
+++ b/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/index/CombinedIndexReader.java
@@ -111,11 +111,22 @@ public class CombinedIndexReader {
                 return 0;
             });
 
-            var head = findFullWord(elements.getLong(0));
-            for (int i = 1; i < elements.size(); i++) {
-                head.addInclusionFilter(hasWordFull(elements.getLong(i)));
+            if (!SearchTerms.stopWords.contains(elements.getLong(0))) {
+                var head = findFullWord(elements.getLong(0));
+
+                for (int i = 1; i < elements.size(); i++) {
+                    long termId = elements.getLong(i);
+
+                    // if a stop word is present in the query, skip the step of requiring it to be in the document,
+                    // we'll assume it's there and save IO
+                    if (SearchTerms.stopWords.contains(termId)) {
+                        continue;
+                    }
+
+                    head.addInclusionFilter(hasWordFull(termId));
+                }
+                queryHeads.add(head);
             }
-            queryHeads.add(head);
 
             // If there are few paths, we can afford to check the priority index as well
             if (paths.size() < 4) {
diff --git a/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/model/SearchTerms.java b/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/model/SearchTerms.java
index 832d22b7..019832b2 100644
--- a/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/model/SearchTerms.java
+++ b/code/index/java/nu/marginalia/index/model/SearchTerms.java
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 package nu.marginalia.index.model;
 
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.LongArrayList;
+import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.LongArraySet;
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.LongComparator;
 import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.LongList;
 import nu.marginalia.api.searchquery.model.compiled.CompiledQueryLong;
@@ -19,6 +20,14 @@ public final class SearchTerms {
     private final List<LongList> coherencesMandatory;
     private final List<LongList> coherencesOptional;
 
+    public static final LongArraySet stopWords = new LongArraySet(
+            new long[] {
+                    getWordId("a"),
+                    getWordId("an"),
+                    getWordId("the"),
+            }
+    );
+
     private final CompiledQueryLong compiledQueryIds;
 
     public SearchTerms(SearchQuery query,
diff --git a/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordDictionary.java b/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordDictionary.java
deleted file mode 100644
index 622c3b8c..00000000
--- a/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordDictionary.java
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-package nu.marginalia.language;
-
-import org.slf4j.Logger;
-import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
-
-import java.io.BufferedReader;
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.io.InputStreamReader;
-import java.util.HashSet;
-import java.util.Objects;
-import java.util.Set;
-
-public class WordDictionary {
-    private final Set<String> words;
-    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(WordDictionary.class);
-
-    private WordDictionary(Set<String> words) {
-        this.words = words;
-    }
-
-    public static WordDictionary fromClasspathResource(String resourceName) {
-        var set = new HashSet<String>(200, 0.5f);
-
-        try (var resource = Objects.requireNonNull(ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream(resourceName),
-                "Could not load word frequency table");
-             var br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(resource))
-        ) {
-            while (true) {
-                String s = br.readLine();
-
-                if (s == null) break;
-                if (s.isBlank()) continue;
-
-                set.add(s.trim());
-            }
-        } catch (IOException e) {
-            logger.warn("Failed to load resource " + resourceName, e);
-        }
-
-        return new WordDictionary(set);
-    }
-
-    public boolean contains(String str) {
-        return words.contains(str);
-    }
-}
diff --git a/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordPatterns.java b/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordPatterns.java
index dbc8c9c8..9f137ddc 100644
--- a/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordPatterns.java
+++ b/code/libraries/language-processing/java/nu/marginalia/language/WordPatterns.java
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
 package nu.marginalia.language;
 
-import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
-
 /** Logic for deciding which words are eligible to be keywords.
  * <p/>
  * This is in dire need of oversight. Here be towering dragons with names,
@@ -14,8 +12,6 @@ public class WordPatterns {
     public static final int MAX_WORD_LENGTH = 64;
 
     public static final String WORD_TOKEN_JOINER = "_";
-    private static final WordDictionary stopWords =
-            WordDictionary.fromClasspathResource("dictionary/en-stopwords");
 
     /** Run checks on the word and exclude terms with too many special characters
      */
@@ -57,27 +53,13 @@ public class WordPatterns {
         return true;
     }
 
+    // Stopword exclusion has been moved to the index.  We just filter out
+    // junk words here now.
     public static boolean isStopWord(String s) {
-        if (s.length() < MIN_WORD_LENGTH) {
-            return true;
-        }
-
         if (!isNotJunkWord(s)) {
             return true;
         }
 
-        String sLc;
-        if (StringUtils.isAllLowerCase(s)) {
-            sLc = s;
-        }
-        else {
-            sLc = s.toLowerCase();
-        }
-
-        if (stopWords.contains(sLc)) {
-            return true;
-        }
-
         return false;
     }
 
diff --git a/code/libraries/language-processing/resources/dictionary/en-stopwords b/code/libraries/language-processing/resources/dictionary/en-stopwords
deleted file mode 100644
index f19a4788..00000000
--- a/code/libraries/language-processing/resources/dictionary/en-stopwords
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-a
-the
\ No newline at end of file