diff --git a/velox/core/QueryConfig.h b/velox/core/QueryConfig.h
index 9e9846590867..7041126e2153 100644
--- a/velox/core/QueryConfig.h
+++ b/velox/core/QueryConfig.h
@@ -234,10 +234,10 @@ class QueryConfig {
       "spill_compression_codec";
 
   /// Enable the prefix sort or fallback to timsort in spill. The prefix sort is
-  /// faster than timsort but requires the memory to build prefix data, which
-  /// may cause out of memory.
-  static constexpr const char* kSpillEnablePrefixSort =
-      "spill_enable_prefix_sort";
+  /// faster than std::sort but requires the memory to build normalized prefix
+  /// keys, which might have potential risk of running out of server memory.
+  static constexpr const char* kSpillPrefixSortEnabled =
+      "spill_prefixsort_enabled";
 
   /// Specifies spill write buffer size in bytes. The spiller tries to buffer
   /// serialized spill data up to the specified size before write to storage
@@ -641,8 +641,8 @@ class QueryConfig {
     return get<std::string>(kSpillCompressionKind, "none");
   }
 
-  bool spillEnablePrefixSort() const {
-    return get<bool>(kSpillEnablePrefixSort, false);
+  bool spillPrefixSortEnabled() const {
+    return get<bool>(kSpillPrefixSortEnabled, false);
   }
 
   uint64_t spillWriteBufferSize() const {
diff --git a/velox/docs/configs.rst b/velox/docs/configs.rst
index e6fe264a7cac..d16dbb3ecef7 100644
--- a/velox/docs/configs.rst
+++ b/velox/docs/configs.rst
@@ -349,11 +349,11 @@ Spilling
      - Specifies the compression algorithm type to compress the spilled data before write to disk to trade CPU for IO
        efficiency. The supported compression codecs are: ZLIB, SNAPPY, LZO, ZSTD, LZ4 and GZIP.
        NONE means no compression.
-   * - spill_enable_prefix_sort
+   * - spill_prefixsort_enabled
      - bool
      - false
-     - Enable the prefix sort or fallback to timsort in spill. The prefix sort is faster than timsort but requires the
-       memory to build prefix data, which might have potential risk of running out of server memory.
+     - Enable the prefix sort or fallback to timsort in spill. The prefix sort is faster than std::sort but requires the
+       memory to build normalized prefix keys, which might have potential risk of running out of server memory.
    * - spiller_start_partition_bit
      - integer
      - 29
diff --git a/velox/exec/Driver.cpp b/velox/exec/Driver.cpp
index 9156672ea32e..9f2b8adfa7a9 100644
--- a/velox/exec/Driver.cpp
+++ b/velox/exec/Driver.cpp
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ std::optional<common::SpillConfig> DriverCtx::makeSpillConfig(
       queryConfig.maxSpillRunRows(),
       queryConfig.writerFlushThresholdBytes(),
       queryConfig.spillCompressionKind(),
-      queryConfig.spillEnablePrefixSort()
+      queryConfig.spillPrefixSortEnabled()
           ? std::optional<common::PrefixSortConfig>(prefixSortConfig())
           : std::nullopt,
       queryConfig.spillFileCreateConfig());
diff --git a/velox/exec/tests/SpillTest.cpp b/velox/exec/tests/SpillTest.cpp
index af320c828b16..351dc462f481 100644
--- a/velox/exec/tests/SpillTest.cpp
+++ b/velox/exec/tests/SpillTest.cpp
@@ -54,15 +54,30 @@ class TestRuntimeStatWriter : public BaseRuntimeStatWriter {
 } // namespace
 
 struct TestParam {
-  common::CompressionKind compressionKind;
-  bool enablePrefixSort;
+  const common::CompressionKind compressionKind;
+  const bool enablePrefixSort;
 
   TestParam(common::CompressionKind _compressionKind, bool _enablePrefixSort)
       : compressionKind(_compressionKind),
         enablePrefixSort(_enablePrefixSort) {}
+
+  TestParam(uint32_t value)
+      : compressionKind(static_cast<common::CompressionKind>(value >> 1)),
+        enablePrefixSort(!!(value & 1)) {}
+
+  uint32_t value() const {
+    return static_cast<uint32_t>(compressionKind) << 1 | enablePrefixSort;
+  }
+
+  std::string toString() const {
+    return fmt::format(
+        "compressionKind: {}, enablePrefixSort: {}",
+        compressionKind,
+        enablePrefixSort);
+  }
 };
 
-class SpillTest : public ::testing::TestWithParam<common::CompressionKind>,
+class SpillTest : public ::testing::TestWithParam<uint32_t>,
                   public facebook::velox::test::VectorTestBase {
  public:
   explicit SpillTest()
@@ -75,13 +90,33 @@ class SpillTest : public ::testing::TestWithParam<common::CompressionKind>,
     setThreadLocalRunTimeStatWriter(nullptr);
   }
 
-  static std::vector<common::CompressionKind> getTestParams() {
-    std::vector<common::CompressionKind> testParams;
-    testParams.emplace_back(common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_NONE);
-    testParams.emplace_back(common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZLIB);
-    testParams.emplace_back(common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_SNAPPY);
-    testParams.emplace_back(common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZSTD);
-    testParams.emplace_back(common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_LZ4);
+  static std::vector<uint32_t> getTestParams() {
+    std::vector<uint32_t> testParams;
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_NONE, false}
+            .value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZLIB, false}
+            .value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_SNAPPY, false}
+            .value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZSTD, false}
+            .value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_LZ4, false}.value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_NONE, true}.value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZLIB, true}.value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_SNAPPY, true}
+            .value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_ZSTD, true}.value());
+    testParams.emplace_back(
+        TestParam{common::CompressionKind::CompressionKind_LZ4, true}.value());
     return testParams;
   }
 
@@ -103,8 +138,8 @@ class SpillTest : public ::testing::TestWithParam<common::CompressionKind>,
     tempDir_ = exec::test::TempDirectoryPath::create();
     filesystems::registerLocalFileSystem();
     rng_.seed(1);
-    compressionKind_ = GetParam();
-    enablePrefixSort_ = true;
+    compressionKind_ = TestParam{GetParam()}.compressionKind;
+    enablePrefixSort_ = TestParam{GetParam()}.enablePrefixSort;
   }
 
   uint8_t randPartitionBitOffset() {