diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 5fb8691..c5ce668 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 
 ## News and Updates 🔥
 
+- **2025-02-01**  Callable for stdlib functions (sorted/min/max)
 - **2025-01-04**  We're excited to announce support for model2vec static embeddings. See also: [Model2Vec](https://github.com/MinishLab/model2vec)
 - **2024-10-04**  Added semantic splitting inference algorithm. See our [technical overview](tutorials/blog/semantic_split/wl_semantic_blog.md).
 
@@ -20,6 +21,7 @@
 - [How Fast?](#how-fast-zap)
 - [Usage](#usage)
   - [Embedding Text](#embedding-text)
+  - [Stdlib Sorted/Min/Max](#stdlib-sorted-min-max)
   - [Calculating Similarity](#calculating-similarity)
   - [Ranking Documents](#ranking-documents)
   - [Fuzzy Deduplication](#fuzzy-deduplication)
@@ -52,22 +54,37 @@ from wordllama import WordLlama
 # Load the default WordLlama model
 wl = WordLlama.load()
 
-# Calculate similarity between two sentences
-similarity_score = wl.similarity("I went to the car", "I went to the pawn shop")
-print(similarity_score)  # Output: e.g., 0.0664
-
-# Rank documents based on their similarity to a query
-query = "I went to the car"
-candidates = ["I went to the park", "I went to the shop", "I went to the truck", "I went to the vehicle"]
-ranked_docs = wl.rank(query, candidates)
-print(ranked_docs)
-# Output:
-# [
-#   ('I went to the vehicle', 0.7441),
-#   ('I went to the truck', 0.2832),
-#   ('I went to the shop', 0.1973),
-#   ('I went to the park', 0.1510)
-# ]
+query = "Machine learning methods"
+candidates = [
+    "Foundations of neural science",
+    "Introduction to neural networks",
+    "Cooking delicious pasta at home",
+    "Introduction to philosophy: logic",
+]
+
+# Returns a Callable[[str], float] function
+sim_key = wl.key(query)
+
+# Sort candidates, most similar first
+sorted_candidates = sorted(candidates, key=sim_key, reverse=True)
+
+# Most similar candidate
+best_candidate = max(candidates, key=sim_key)
+
+# Print the results
+print("Ranked Candidates:")
+for i, candidate in enumerate(sorted_candidates, 1):
+    print(f"{i}. {candidate} (Score: {sim_key(candidate):.4f})")
+
+print(f"\nBest Match: {best_candidate} (Score: {sim_key(best_candidate):.4f})")
+
+# Ranked Candidates:
+# 1. Introduction to neural networks (Score: 0.3414)
+# 2. Foundations of neural science (Score: 0.2115)
+# 3. Introduction to philosophy: logic (Score: 0.1067)
+# 4. Cooking delicious pasta at home (Score: 0.0045)
+# 
+# Best Match: Introduction to neural networks (Score: 0.3414)
 ```
 
 ## Features
@@ -149,6 +166,44 @@ embeddings = wl.embed(["The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", "And all t
 print(embeddings.shape)  # Output: (2, 64)
 ```
 
+### Stdlib Examples
+
+Return a Callable function from `.key(query)`.
+
+```python
+query = "Machine learning methods"
+candidates = [
+    "Foundations of neural science",
+    "Introduction to neural networks",
+    "Cooking delicious pasta at home",
+    "Introduction to philosophy: logic",
+]
+
+# Returns a Callable[[str], float] function
+sim_key = wl.key(query)
+
+# Sort candidates, most similar first
+sorted_candidates = sorted(candidates, key=sim_key, reverse=True)
+
+# Most similar candidate
+best_candidate = max(candidates, key=sim_key)
+
+# Print the results
+print("Ranked Candidates:")
+for i, candidate in enumerate(sorted_candidates, 1):
+    print(f"{i}. {candidate} (Score: {sim_key(candidate):.4f})")
+
+print(f"\nBest Match: {best_candidate} (Score: {sim_key(best_candidate):.4f})")
+
+# Ranked Candidates:
+# 1. Introduction to neural networks (Score: 0.3414)
+# 2. Foundations of neural science (Score: 0.2115)
+# 3. Introduction to philosophy: logic (Score: 0.1067)
+# 4. Cooking delicious pasta at home (Score: 0.0045)
+# 
+# Best Match: Introduction to neural networks (Score: 0.3414)
+```
+
 ### Calculating Similarity
 
 Compute the similarity between two texts:
@@ -324,7 +379,7 @@ If you use WordLlama in your research or project, please consider citing it as f
   title = {WordLlama: Recycled Token Embeddings from Large Language Models},
   year = {2024},
   url = {https://github.com/dleemiller/wordllama},
-  version = {0.3.7}
+  version = {0.3.9}
 }
 ```
 
diff --git a/tests/test_functional.py b/tests/test_functional.py
index 542d441..6876a46 100644
--- a/tests/test_functional.py
+++ b/tests/test_functional.py
@@ -15,3 +15,27 @@ def test_function_similarity_binary(self):
         wl = WordLlama.load()
         wl.binary = True
         wl.similarity("a", "b")
+
+    def test_function_sorted(self):
+        wl = WordLlama.load()
+        query = "test query"
+        candidates = ["example A", "example B", "example C"]
+
+        sim_key = wl.key(query)
+        sorted_candidates = sorted(candidates, key=sim_key, reverse=True)
+
+        self.assertIsInstance(sorted_candidates, list)
+        self.assertEqual(len(sorted_candidates), len(candidates))
+
+    def test_function_max(self):
+        wl = WordLlama.load()
+        query = "test query"
+        candidates = ["example A", "example B", "example C"]
+
+        sim_key = wl.key(query)
+        best_candidate = max(candidates, key=sim_key)
+
+        self.assertIn(best_candidate, candidates)
+        self.assertEqual(
+            best_candidate, max(candidates, key=lambda x: wl.similarity(query, x))
+        )
diff --git a/wordllama/inference.py b/wordllama/inference.py
index ccd343a..f5159ac 100644
--- a/wordllama/inference.py
+++ b/wordllama/inference.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import numpy as np
 from tokenizers import Tokenizer
-from typing import Union, List, Tuple, Optional
+from typing import Callable, List, Optional, Tuple, Union
 import logging
 
 from .algorithms import (
@@ -177,6 +177,32 @@ def similarity(self, text1: str, text2: str) -> float:
         embedding2 = self.embed(text2)
         return self.vector_similarity(embedding1[0], embedding2[0]).item()
 
+    def key(self, query: str, norm: bool = True) -> Callable[[str], float]:
+        """
+        Returns a key function for comparing candidate strings based on their
+        similarity to the given query. This key function can be used with built-in
+        functions like sorted(), min(), and max().
+
+        Args:
+            query (str): The reference query text.
+            norm (bool, optional): Whether to normalize embeddings before computing
+                                   similarity. Defaults to True.
+
+        Returns:
+            Callable[[str], float]: A function that computes the similarity between
+                                      the precomputed query embedding and a candidate string.
+        """
+        # Precompute the embedding for the query
+        query_embedding = self.embed(query, norm=norm)
+
+        def similarity_key(candidate: str) -> float:
+            candidate_embedding = self.embed(candidate, norm=norm)
+            return self.vector_similarity(
+                query_embedding[0], candidate_embedding[0]
+            ).item()
+
+        return similarity_key
+
     def rank(
         self, query: str, docs: List[str], sort: bool = True, batch_size: int = 64
     ) -> List[Tuple[str, float]]: