diff --git a/Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm b/Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm
index e57d1d7b60..35ab4b7f91 100644
--- a/Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm
+++ b/Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm
@@ -1236,6 +1236,9 @@ sub _split_query {
     # Filter out empty values
     @tokens = grep( /\S/, @tokens );
 
+    # Filter out some known isolated trouble makers: -, ^, \, ~, +
+    @tokens = grep( !/^[-\^\\~\+]*$/, @tokens );
+
     return @tokens;
 }