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Thesaurus
The word thesaurus is New Latin for treasure; coined in the early 1820's. Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar or related meanings. For example, a book of jargon for a specialized field; or more generally a list of subject headings and cross-references used in the filing and retrieval of documents. (Or indeed papers, certificates, letters, cards, records, texts, files, articles, essays and perhaps even manuscripts.)
The first example of this genre, Roget's Thesaurus, was published in 1852, having been compiled earlier, in 1805, by Peter Roget.
Although including synonyms, entries in a thesaurus should not be taken as a list of synonyms. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Nor does a thesaurus entry define words. That work is left to the dictionary.
In Information Technology, a thesaurus represents a database or list of semantically orthogonal topical search keys. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, a thesaurus may sometimes be referred to as an ontology.
Examples
- Thesaurus of English Words & Phrases (ed. P. Roget); ISBN 0062720376, see: Roget's Thesaurus.
- Webster's New World Thesaurus (ed. C. Laird); ISBN 0671519832
- Oxford American Desk Thesaurus (ed. C. Lindberg); ISBN 0195126742
- Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier; ISBN 0679400303, an unusual blend of thesaurus, dictionary, and glossary.
Specialized
- Evaluation Thesaurus (by. M. Scriven); ISBN 0803943644
- Great Song Thesaurus (by R. Lax & F. Smith); ISBN 0195054083
- Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (APA); ISBN 1557987750
- Clinician's Thesaurus, (by E.Zuckerman); ISBN 157230569X
External Links
See also: Dictionary
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Bartleby.com: Reference
Includes "Roget's International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases" and Houghton-Mifflin's "Roget's II: The New Thesaurus," third edition.
http://www.bartleby.com/reference/
Roget's International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
Online publication of this popular thesaurus made available by Bartleby.com.
http://www.bartleby.com/110/
INGRID Library Thesaurus
Allows direct term search with results hyperlinked to broader and narrower search terms. Available in English and Estonian.
http://ingrid.utlib.ee/thesaurus.html
Historical Thesaurus of English
Contains the vocabulary of English from the earliest written records to the present, with known recorded dates of usage, taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/thesaur/homepage.htm
Yahoo! Roget's II Thesaurus
Contains over 260,000 synonyms and cross-references. Features succinct word definitions and hyperlinked category index.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/thesaurus
Roget's Thesaurus - As distributed by Project Gutenberg
E-text of Roget's Thesaurus No. Two, which is derived from the version of Roget's Thesaurus published in 1911.
http://asadz.com/thesaurus/
Phrases Thesaurus
A resource for writers. Enter a single word and it will return a list of phrases and sayings that are related to the word in some way. In English.
http://www.phrasefinder.co.uk
HASSET
Provides direct term search followed by hierarchical and other types of browsing. Based on a UNESCO thesaurus.
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/search/hassetSearch.asp
Lexical Freenet
Search for relationships between words and concepts that might never have occurred to you before.
http://www.lexfn.com/
Roget's Interactive Thesaurus
Roget's Thesaurus of English words and phrases.
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
American Society of Indexers - Thesauri Online
Annotated directory.
http://www.asindexing.org/site/thesonet.shtml
Sybrina's Phrase Thesaurus
A creative phrase tool for creative writers of any genre including college students, people just learning English, people wanting to improve their communication skills, artistic professionals and others.
http://www.sybrina.com
Germ
Searchable WordNet and Roget's Thesaurus with meaning trees.
http://www.germ.cz/
WordNet - a Lexical Database for English
An on-line lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets. From the Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn
Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus
An exploration of sense relationships within the English language. By clicking on words, you follow a thread of meaning, creating a spatial map of linguistic associations.
http://www.plumbdesign.com/thesaurus/
WWWebster Thesaurus
Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
http://www.m-w.com/thesaurus.htm
Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus
Integrated english dictionary and thesaurus.
http://www.wordsmyth.net/
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