diff --git a/src/autocomplete/QueryMatcher.ts b/src/autocomplete/QueryMatcher.ts
index 7a0219e264..99814bf4d0 100644
--- a/src/autocomplete/QueryMatcher.ts
+++ b/src/autocomplete/QueryMatcher.ts
@@ -18,16 +18,15 @@ limitations under the License.
 
 import _at from 'lodash/at';
 import _uniq from 'lodash/uniq';
-
-function stripDiacritics(str: string): string {
-    return str.normalize('NFD').replace(/[\u0300-\u036f]/g, '');
-}
+import {removeHiddenChars} from "../../../matrix-js-sdk/src/utils";
 
 interface IOptions<T extends {}> {
     keys: Array<string | keyof T>;
     funcs?: Array<(T) => string>;
     shouldMatchWordsOnly?: boolean;
     shouldMatchPrefix?: boolean;
+    // whether to apply unhomoglyph and strip diacritics to fuzz up the search. Defaults to true
+    fuzzy?: boolean;
 }
 
 /**
@@ -86,7 +85,7 @@ export default class QueryMatcher<T extends Object> {
 
             for (const [index, keyValue] of Object.entries(keyValues)) {
                 if (!keyValue) continue; // skip falsy keyValues
-                const key = stripDiacritics(keyValue).toLowerCase();
+                const key = this.processQuery(keyValue);
                 if (!this._items.has(key)) {
                     this._items.set(key, []);
                 }
@@ -99,7 +98,7 @@ export default class QueryMatcher<T extends Object> {
     }
 
     match(query: string): T[] {
-        query = stripDiacritics(query).toLowerCase();
+        query = this.processQuery(query);
         if (this._options.shouldMatchWordsOnly) {
             query = query.replace(/[^\w]/g, '');
         }
@@ -142,4 +141,11 @@ export default class QueryMatcher<T extends Object> {
         // Now map the keys to the result objects. Also remove any duplicates.
         return _uniq(matches.map((match) => match.object));
     }
+
+    private processQuery(query: string): string {
+        if (this._options.fuzzy !== false) {
+            return removeHiddenChars(query).toLowerCase();
+        }
+        return query.toLowerCase();
+    }
 }