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A thesaurus (: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), (2025). 9780199560813, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199560813 sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of and . They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
Synonym dictionaries have a long history. The word 'thesaurus' was used in 1852 by Peter Mark Roget for his Roget's Thesaurus.
While some works called "thesauri", such as Roget's Thesaurus, group words in a hierarchy taxonomy of concepts, others are organised alphabetically (2025). 9780877796374, Merriam-Webster. ISBN 9780877796374 or in some other way.
Most thesauri do not include definitions, but many dictionaries include listings of synonyms.
Some thesauri and dictionary synonym notes characterise the distinctions between similar words, with notes on their "connotations and varying shades of meaning". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011, , p. xxvii Some synonym dictionaries are primarily concerned with differentiating synonyms by meaning and usage. Usage dictionary such as Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage or Garner's Modern English Usage often prescribe appropriate usage of synonyms.
Writers sometimes use thesauri to avoid repetition of words – elegant variation – which is often criticised by usage manuals: "Writers sometimes use them not just to vary their vocabularies but to dress them up too much".Edwin L. Battistella, "Beware the thesaurus", OUPblog, "Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World", February 11, 2018
Until the 19th century, a thesaurus was any dictionary or encyclopedia, as in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae ( Dictionary of the Latin Language, 1532), and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae ( Dictionary of the Greek Language, 1572). It was Roget who introduced the meaning "collection of words arranged according to sense", in 1852.
The study of synonyms became an important theme in 18th-century philosophy, and Condillac wrote, but never published, a dictionary of synonyms.Embleton
Some early synonym dictionaries include:
Roget's Thesaurus, first compiled in 1805 by Peter Mark Roget, and published in 1852, follows John Wilkins' semantic arrangement of 1668. Unlike earlier synonym dictionaries, it does not include definitions or aim to help the user choose among synonyms. It has been continuously in print since 1852 and remains widely used across the English-speaking world. Roget described his thesaurus in the foreword to the first edition:
It is now nearly fifty years since I first projected a system of verbal classification similar to that on which the present work is founded. Conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my deficiencies, I had, in the year 1805, completed a classed catalogue of words on a small scale, but on the same principle, and nearly in the same form, as the Thesaurus now published.
The book starts with a Tabular Synopsis of Categories laying out the hierarchy,Roget, op.cit. p. xxvi then the main body of the thesaurus listed by the Head, and then an alphabetical index listing the different Heads under which a word may be found: Liable, subject to, 177; debt, 806; duty, 926.Roget, op.cit. p. 349
Some recent versions have kept the same organization, though often with more detail under each Head. e.g., George Davidson, ed., Thesaurus of English words and phrases (150th Anniversary Edition), Penguin, 2002, , p. 454 Others have made modest changes such as eliminating the four-level taxonomy and adding new heads: one has 1075 Heads in fifteen Classes.Barbara Ann Kipfer, ed., Roget's International Thesaurus, 7th edition, Collins Reference, 2010,
Some non-English thesauri have also adopted this model.Daniel Péchoin, Thésaurus Larousse, Larousse 1991,
In addition to its taxonomic organization, the Historical Thesaurus of English (2009) includes the date when each word came to have a given meaning. It has the novel and unique goal of "charting the semantic development of the huge and varied vocabulary of English".
Different senses of a word are listed separately. For example, three different senses of "debt" are listed in three different places in the taxonomy:Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, Irené Wotherspoon, Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press 2009, , p. ix
A sum of money that is owed or due; a liability or obligation to pay
Most repeat the list of synonyms under each word. Longman Synonym Dictionary, Rodale Press and Longman Group, 1986, Charlton Laird, Michael Agnes, eds., Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus, Macmillan USA, 3rd edition, 1971, Christine A. Lindberg, The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English, Oxford University Press, 1999, Oxford Thesaurus of English, 3rd edition, 2009,
Some designate a principal entry for each concept and cross-reference it. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms : Choose Words with Precision, 1994, uses an asteriskHenri Bertaud du Chazaud, Dictionnaire de synonyms et contraires, Le Robert "Les Usuels", 1998, Roger Boussinot, Dictionnaire des synonymes, analogies et antonymes, Bordas 1981,
A third system interfiles words and conceptual headings. Francis March's Thesaurus Dictionary gives for liability: , each of which is a conceptual heading. Francis Andrew March, Francis A. March, Jr., March's Thesaurus and Dictionary of the English Language (issued under the editorial supervision of Norman Cousins), Doubleday, 1968, p. 598 full text, 1906 edition The article has multiple subheadings, including Nouns of Agent, Verbs, Verbal Expressions, etc. Under each are listed synonyms with brief definitions, e.g. " Credit. Transference of property on promise of future payment." The conceptual headings are not organized into a taxonomy.
Benjamin Lafaye's Synonymes français (1841) is organized around morphologically related families of synonyms ( e.g. logis, logement),Pierre Benjamin Lafaye, Synonymes français, Paris 1841 full text and his Dictionnaire des synonymes de la langue française (1858) is mostly alphabetical, but also includes a section on morphologically related synonyms, which is organized by prefix, suffix, or construction.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms is a stand-alone modern English synonym dictionary that does discuss differences. In addition, many general English dictionaries include synonym notes.
Several modern synonym dictionaries in French are primarily devoted to discussing the precise demarcations among synonyms.Henri Bénac, Dictionnaire des synonymes, Hachette 1956, (1982 edition)B. Lafaye, Dictionnaire des synonymes de la langue française, Hachette 1869, 3rd edition
Some give illustrative phrases.
Some include lists of objects within the category (), e.g. breeds of dogs.
A thesaurus can form part of an ontology and be represented in the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS).
Thesauri are used in natural language processing for word-sense disambiguationYarowsky, David. " Word-sense disambiguation using statistical models of Roget's categories trained on large corpora." Proceedings of the 14th conference on Computational linguistics-Volume 2. Association for Computational Linguistics, 1992. and text simplification for machine translation systems.Siddharthan, Advaith. "An architecture for a text simplification system." Language Engineering Conference, 2002. Proceedings. IEEE, 2002.
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