diff --git a/Px.Search.Lucene/LuceneSearcher.cs b/Px.Search.Lucene/LuceneSearcher.cs
index 3a8a722e..28e55cae 100644
--- a/Px.Search.Lucene/LuceneSearcher.cs
+++ b/Px.Search.Lucene/LuceneSearcher.cs
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ namespace Px.Search.Lucene
     public class LuceneSearcher : ISearcher
     {
         private readonly IndexSearcher _indexSearcher;
-        private static readonly Operator _defaultOperator = Operator.AND;
+        private static readonly Operator _defaultOperator = Operator.OR;
         private readonly Analyzer _analyzer;
         private readonly string[] _fieldNames;
 
diff --git a/PxWeb.UnitTests/Search/LuceneAnalyzerTest.cs b/PxWeb.UnitTests/Search/LuceneAnalyzerTest.cs
index 49280de7..b8b54f6d 100644
--- a/PxWeb.UnitTests/Search/LuceneAnalyzerTest.cs
+++ b/PxWeb.UnitTests/Search/LuceneAnalyzerTest.cs
@@ -16,6 +16,14 @@ public void UsingSwedishAnalyzerOnSingular()
             TestSearcher("sv", "region", 3);
         }
 
+        [TestMethod]
+        public void SearchUsesOrAsDefaultOperator()
+        {
+            // "region" has 3 hits in current test data.
+            // The second term should not exist, so with OR the result should still be 3.
+            // With AND this would become 0, so this test guards the default operator behavior.
+            TestSearcher("sv", "region thistextdoesnotexist", 3);
+        }
 
         private void TestSearcher(string language, string searchFor, int expectedCount)
         {
@@ -36,8 +44,6 @@ private void TestSearcher(string language, string searchFor, int expectedCount)
 
             MyHost myHost = new MyHost(wwwPath);
 
-
-
             var myOptions = Microsoft.Extensions.Options.Options.Create(luceneConfigurationOptions);
 
             ILuceneConfigurationService conf = new LuceneConfigurationService(myOptions, myHost);