Keywords

Keywords are words with a predefined meaning in Cypher®.

Keywords are not recommended to be used as identifiers in the following contexts:

  • Variables

  • Labels

  • Relationship types

  • Function names

  • Procedure names

If a snippet of Cypher can both be a keyword and an unquoted identifier, it is interpreted as a keyword.

For instance in the following, true could be the variable true or the Boolean literal value true. Since true is a keyword, the query returns a single Boolean true value.

Query
WITH 123 AS true
RETURN true AS x
Table 1. Result
x

true

Rows: 1

If any keyword is quoted in backticks (`), such as `true`, it is always interpreted as an identifier in the given context.

Query
WITH 123 AS true
RETURN `true` AS x
Table 2. Result
x

123

Rows: 1
The keywords NOT, null, TYPED, NORMALIZED, NFC, NFD, NFKC, and NFKD are not allowed as label names after the keyword IS unless they are quoted by backticks. For example, CREATE (n IS NOT) is invalid, but CREATE (n IS `NOT`) is allowed.

List of keywords

The following lists all keywords in Cypher.

Note that with future functionality, Cypher may be extended with additional keywords.

A

  • ACCESS

  • ACTIVE

  • ADMIN

  • ADMINISTRATOR

  • ALIAS

  • ALIASES

  • ALL

  • ALL_SHORTEST_PATHS

  • ALTER

  • AND

  • ANY

  • ARRAY

  • AS

  • ASC

  • ASCENDING

  • ASSIGN

  • AT

  • AUTH

B

  • BINDINGS

  • BOOL

  • BOOLEAN

  • BOOSTED

  • BOTH

  • BREAK

  • BUILT

  • BY

C

  • CALL

  • CASCADE

  • CASE

  • CHANGE

  • CIDR

  • COLLECT

  • COMMAND

  • COMMANDS

  • COMPOSITE

  • CONCURRENT

  • CONSTRAINT

  • CONSTRAINTS

  • CONTAINS

  • CONTINUE

  • COPY

  • COUNT

  • CREATE

  • CSV

  • CURRENT

D

  • DATA

  • DATABASE

  • DATABASES

  • DATE

  • DATETIME

  • DBMS

  • DEALLOCATE

  • DEFAULT

  • DEFINED

  • DELETE

  • DENY

  • DESC

  • DESCENDING

  • DESTROY

  • DETACH

  • DIFFERENT

  • DISTINCT

  • DRIVER

  • DROP

  • DRYRUN

  • DUMP

  • DURATION

E

  • EACH

  • EDGE

  • ELEMENT

  • ELEMENTS

  • ELSE

  • ENABLE

  • ENCRYPTED

  • END

  • ENDS

  • ERROR

  • EXECUTABLE

  • EXECUTE

  • EXIST

  • EXISTENCE

  • EXISTS

F

  • FAIL

  • false

  • FIELDTERMINATOR

  • FINISH

  • FLOAT

  • FOR

  • FOREACH

  • FROM

  • FULLTEXT

  • FUNCTION

  • FUNCTIONS

G, H

  • GRANT

  • GRAPH

  • GRAPHS

  • GROUP

  • GROUPS

  • HEADERS

  • HOME

I

  • ID

  • IF

  • IMMUTABLE

  • IMPERSONATE

  • IN

  • INDEX

  • INDEXES

  • INF

  • INFINITY

  • INSERT

  • INT

  • INTEGER

  • IS

J, K, L, M

  • JOIN

  • KEY

  • LABEL

  • LABELS

  • LEADING

  • LIMITROWS

  • LIST

  • LOAD

  • LOCAL

  • LOOKUP

  • MANAGEMENT

  • MAP

  • MATCH

  • MERGE

N

  • NAME

  • NAMES

  • NAN

  • NEW

  • NFC

  • NFD

  • NFKC

  • NFKD

  • NODE

  • NODES

  • NODETACH

  • NONE

  • NORMALIZE

  • NORMALIZED

  • NOT

  • NOTHING

  • NOWAIT

  • null

O

  • OF

  • OFFSET

  • ON

  • ONLY

  • OPTION

  • OPTIONAL

  • OPTIONS

  • OR

  • ORDER

P

  • PASSWORD

  • PASSWORDS

  • PATH

  • PATHS

  • PLAINTEXT

  • POINT

  • POPULATED

  • PRIMARIES

  • PRIMARY

  • PRIVILEGE

  • PRIVILEGES

  • PROCEDURE

  • PROCEDURES

  • PROPERTIES

  • PROPERTY

  • PROVIDER

  • PROVIDERS

R

  • RANGE

  • READ

  • REALLOCATE

  • REDUCE

  • REL

  • RELATIONSHIP

  • RELATIONSHIPS

  • REMOVE

  • RENAME

  • REPEATABLE

  • REPLACE

  • REPORT

  • REQUIRE

  • REQUIRED

  • RESTRICT

  • RETURN

  • REVOKE

  • ROLE

  • ROLES

  • ROW

  • ROWS

S

  • SCAN

  • SEC

  • SECOND

  • SECONDARIES

  • SECONDARY

  • SECONDS

  • SEEK

  • SERVER

  • SERVERS

  • SET

  • SETTING

  • SETTINGS

  • SHORTEST

  • SHORTEST_PATH

  • SHOW

  • SIGNED

  • SINGLE

  • SKIPROWS

  • START

  • STARTS

  • STATUS

  • STOP

  • STRING

  • SUPPORTED

  • SUSPENDED

T

  • TARGET

  • TERMINATE

  • TEXT

  • THEN

  • TIME

  • TIMESTAMP

  • TIMEZONE

  • TO

  • TOPOLOGY

  • TRAILING

  • TRANSACTION

  • TRANSACTIONS

  • TRAVERSE

  • TRIM

  • true

  • TYPE

  • TYPED

  • TYPES

U

  • UNION

  • UNIQUE

  • UNIQUENESS

  • UNWIND

  • URL

  • USE

  • USER

  • USERS

  • USING

V, W, X, Y, Z

  • VALUE

  • VARCHAR

  • VECTOR

  • VERTEX

  • WAIT

  • WHEN

  • WHERE

  • WITH

  • WITHOUT

  • WRITE

  • XOR

  • YIELD

  • ZONE

  • ZONED