Techniques are disclosed for processing an abstract query which includes a dictionary term criteria condition. The dictionary term criteria condition is used to specify a set of one or more keywords, each of which should appear in a distinct document (of a defined set of documents) in order for the condition to be satisfied. In one embodiment, a user defines an abstract query by specifying a model entity (a logical focus for a query used to identify a set of documents associated with the model entity), logical fields (specifying query conditions and information to be returned), and a set of terms for a dictionary term criteria condition.