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The Thesaurus is a great way to come up with phrases and sayings connected to the topic you are writing about - often ones you would never have thought of. The Phrase Thesaurus is used by professional journalists, copywriters and songwriters, or anyone interested in words and phrases.

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Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, two-volume set

A thesaurus (plural thesauri or thesauruses) or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:

.to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed

— Peter Mark Roget, 1852[1]

Synonym dictionaries have a long history. The word 'thesaurus' was used in 1852 by Peter Mark Roget for his Roget's Thesaurus.

While some thesauri, such as Roget's Thesaurus Acorn 4 5 2 – bitmap image editor. , group words in a hierarchicaltaxonomy of concepts, others are organized alphabetically or in some other way.

Most thesauri do not include definitions, but many dictionaries include listings of synonyms.

Some thesauri and dictionary synonym notes characterize the distinctions between similar words, with notes on their 'connotations and varying shades of meaning'.[2] Some synonym dictionaries are primarily concerned with differentiating synonyms by meaning and usage. Usage manuals such as Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage often prescribe appropriate usage of synonyms.

Thesauri are sometimes used to avoid repetition of words, leading to elegant variation, which is often criticized by usage manuals: 'writers sometimes use them not just to vary their vocabularies but to dress them up too much'.[3]

Etymology[edit]

The word 'thesaurus' comes from Latinthēsaurus, which in turn comes from Greekθησαυρός (thēsauros) 'treasure, treasury, storehouse'.[4] The word thēsauros is of uncertain etymology.[4][5]

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 that introduced the meaning 'collection of words arranged according to sense', in 1852.[4]

History[edit]

Peter Mark Roget, author of Roget's thesaurus.

In antiquity, Philo of Byblos authored the first text that could now be called a thesaurus. In Sanskrit, the Amarakosha is a thesaurus in verse form, written in the 4th century.

The study of synonyms became an important theme in 18th-century philosophy, and Condillac wrote, but never published, a dictionary of synonyms.[6][7]

Some early synonym dictionaries include:

  • John Wilkins, An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language and Alphabetical Dictionary (1668) are a 'regular enumeration and description of all those things and notions to which names are to be assigned'. They are not explicitly synonym dictionaries — in fact, they do not even use the word 'synonym' — but they do group synonyms together.[8][9][10]
  • Gabriel Girard, La Justesse de la langue françoise, ou les différentes significations des mots qui passent pour synonymes (1718)[11]
  • John Trusler, The Difference between Words esteemed Synonyms, in the English Language; and the proper choice of them determined (1766)[12]
  • Hester Lynch Piozzi, British Synonymy (1794)[13]
  • James Leslie, Dictionary of the Synonymous Words and Technical Terms in the English Language (1806)[14]
  • George Crabb, English Synonyms Explained (1818)[15]

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 to choose among synonyms. It has been continuously in print since 1852, and remains widely used across the English-speaking world.[16] 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. Spotify music converter for windows. Conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my own 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.[17]

Organization[edit]

Conceptual[edit]

Roget's original thesaurus was organized into 1000 conceptual Heads (e.g., 806 Debt) organized into a four-level taxonomy. For example, liability was classed under V.ii.iv: Class five, Volition: the exercise of the will; Division Two: Social volition; Section 4: Possessive Relations; Subsection 4: Monetary relations.[18] Each head includes direct synonyms: Debt, obligation, liability, .; related concepts: interest, usance, usury; related persons: debtor, debitor, . defaulter (808); verbs: to be in debt, to owe, . see Borrow (788); phrases: to run up a bill or score, .; and adjectives: in debt, indebted, owing, . Numbers in parentheses are cross-references to other Heads.

The book starts with a Tabular Synopsis of Categories laying out the hierarchy,[19] then the main body of the thesaurus listed by 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.[20]

Some recent versions have kept the same organization, though often with more detail under each Head.[21] Others have made modest changes such as eliminating the four-level taxonomy and adding new heads: one has 1075 Heads in fifteen Classes.[22]

Some non-English thesauri have also adopted this model.[23]

Alphabetical[edit]

Other thesauri and synonym dictionaries are organized alphabetically.

Most repeat the list of synonyms under each word.[24][25][26][27]

Some designate a principal entry for each concept and cross-reference it.[28][29][30]

A third system interfiles words and conceptual headings. Francis March's Thesaurus Dictionary gives for liability: CONTINGENCY, CREDIT–DEBT, DUTY–DERELICTION, LIBERTY–SUBJECTION, MONEY, each of which is a conceptual heading.[31] The CREDIT—DEBT 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),[32] 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.[7]

Contrasting senses[edit]

Before Roget, most thesauri and dictionary synonym notes included discussions of the differences among near-synonyms, as do some modern ones.[27][26][25][2]

A few modern synonym dictionaries, notably in French, are primarily devoted to discussing the precise demarcations among synonyms.[33][7]

Additional elements[edit]

Thesaurus

Some include short definitions.[31]

Some give illustrative phrases.[27]

Some include lists of objects by category, e.g. breeds of dogs.[27]

The Historical Thesaurus of English (2009) is organized taxonomically, and 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'.[34]

Bilingual[edit]

Bilingual synonym dictionaries are designed for language learners. One such dictionary gives various French words listed alphabetically, with an English translation and an example of use.[35] Another one is organized taxonomically with examples, translations, and some usage notes.[36]

Information science and natural language processing[edit]

In library and information science, a thesaurus is a kind of controlled vocabulary.

A thesaurus can form part of an ontology and be represented in the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS).[37]

Thesauri are used in natural language processing for word-sense disambiguation[38] and text simplification for machine translation systems.[39]

See also[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

  • W.E. Collinson, 'Comparative Synonymics: Some Principles and Illustrations', Transactions of the Philological Society38:1:54-77, November 1939, doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1939.tb00202.x
  • Gerda Hassler, 'Lafaye's Dictionnaire des synonymes in the History of Semantics' in Sheli Embleton, John E. Joseph, Hans-Josef Hiederehe, The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences, John Benjamins 1999, ISBN1556197594, p. 1:27-40
  • Werner Hüllen, 'Roget's Thesaurus, deconstructed' in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research, papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Leicester, 2002, Max Niemeyer Verlag 2004, ISBN3484391235, p. 83-94
  • Werner Hüllen, A history of Roget's thesaurus : origins, development, and design, Oxford University Press 2004, ISBN0199254729
  • Werner Hüllen, Networks and Knowledge in Roget's Thesaurus, Oxford, January 2009, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199553235.001.0001, ISBN0199553238
  • Gertrude E. Noyes, 'The Beginnings of the Study of Synonyms in England', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA)66:6:951-970 (December 1951) doi:10.2307/460151JSTOR460151
  • Eric Stanley, 'Polysemy and Synonymy and how these Concepts were Understood from the Eighteenth Century onwards in Treatises, and Applied in Dictionaries of English' in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research, papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Leicester, 2002, Max Niemeyer Verlag 2004, ISBN3484391235, p. 157-184

References[edit]

  1. ^Roget, Peter. 1852. Thesaurus of English Language Words and Phrases.
  2. ^ abAmerican Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011, ISBN9780547041018, p. xxvii
  3. ^Edwin L. Battistella, 'Beware the thesaurus', OUPblog, 'Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World', February 11, 2018
  4. ^ abc'thesaurus'. Online Etymology Dictionary.
  5. ^R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 548.
  6. ^Embleton
  7. ^ abcB. Lafaye, Dictionnaire des synonymes de la langue française, Hachette 1869, 3rd edition
  8. ^John Wilkins, An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, London 1668 full text
  9. ^John Wilkins, William Lloyd (anonymously), An Alphabetical Dictionary Wherein all English Words According to their Various Significations, Are either referred to their Places in the Philosophical Tables, Or explained by such Words as are in those Tables, London 1668 full text
  10. ^Natascia Leonardi, 'An Analysis of a Seventeenth Century Conceptual Dictionary with an Alphabetical List of Entries and a Network Definition Structure: John Wilkins' and William Lloyd's An Alphabetical Dictionary (1668)' in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research, papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Leicester, 2002, Max Niemeyer Verlag 2004, ISBN3484391235, p. 39-52
  11. ^Gabriel Girard, La Justesse de la langue françoise, ou les différentes significations des mots qui passent pour synonymes, Paris 1718, full text
  12. ^John Trusler (anonymously), The Difference between Words esteemed Synonyms, in the English Language; and the proper choice of them determined, London, 1766 full text
  13. ^Hester Lynch Piozzi, British Synonymy; or, an Attempt Regulating the Choice of Words in Familiar Conversation, Dublin 1794 full text
  14. ^James Leslie, Dictionary of the Synonymous Words and Technical Terms in the English Language, Edinburgh, 1806 full text
  15. ^George Crabb, English Synonyms Explained, in Alphabetical Order with Copious Illustrations and Examples Drawn from the Best Writers, 2nd edition, London 1818 full text
  16. ^'Introduction - Oxford Scholarship'. oxfordscholarship.com. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199254729.001.0001/acprof-9780199254729-chapter-1. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  17. ^Lloyd 1982, p. xix[full citation needed]
  18. ^Peter Mark Roget, Thesaurus of English words and phrases, classified so as to facilitate the expression of ideas, 1853, V.ii.iv, p. 204
  19. ^Roget, op.cit.p. xxvi
  20. ^Roget, op.cit.p. 349
  21. ^e.g., George Davidson, ed., Thesaurus of English words and phrases (150th Anniversary Edition), Penguin, 2002, ISBN0141004428, p. 454
  22. ^Barbara Ann Kipfer, ed., Roget's International Thesaurus, 7th edition, Collins Reference, 2010, ISBN9780061715228
  23. ^Daniel Péchoin, Thésaurus Larousse, Larousse 1991, ISBN9782033201074
  24. ^Longman Synonym Dictionary, Rodale Press and Longman Group, 1986, ISBN0582893224
  25. ^ abCharlton Laird, Michael Agnes, eds., Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus, Macmillan USA, 3rd edition, 1971, ISBN0028632818
  26. ^ abChristine A. Lindberg, The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN0195133757
  27. ^ abcdOxford Thesaurus of English, 3rd edition, 2009, ISBN9780199560813
  28. ^Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms : Choose Words with Precision, 1994, ISBN0877799067 uses an asterisk
  29. ^Henri Bertaud du Chazaud, Dictionnaire de synonyms et contraires, Le Robert 'Les Usuels', 1998, ISBN2850364568
  30. ^Roger Boussinot, Dictionnaire des synonymes, analogies et antonymes, Bordas 1981, ISBN2040120092
  31. ^ abFrancis 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
  32. ^Pierre Benjamin Lafaye, Synonymes français, Paris 1841 full text
  33. ^Henri Bénac, Dictionnaire des synonymes, Hachette 1956, ISBN2010112199 (1982 edition)
  34. ^Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, Irené Wotherspoon, Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press 2009, ISBN9780199208999, p. ix
  35. ^R.E. Batchelor, M.H. Offord, Using French Synonyms, Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN0521372771
  36. ^Marie-Noëlle Lamy, The Cambridge French-English Thesaurus, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN0521563488
  37. ^Miles, Alistair; Bechhofer, Sean (2009). 'SKOS simple knowledge organization system reference'. W3C recommendation. 18: W3C.
  38. ^Yarowsky, 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.
  39. ^Siddharthan, Advaith. 'An architecture for a text simplification system.' Language Engineering Conference, 2002. Proceedings. IEEE, 2002.

External links[edit]

  • The dictionary definition of thesaurus at Wiktionary
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thesaurus&oldid=979685055'

In the context of information retrieval, a thesaurus (plural: 'thesauri') is a form of controlled vocabulary that seeks to dictate semantic manifestations of metadata in the indexing of content objects. A thesaurus serves to minimise semantic ambiguity by ensuring uniformity and consistency in the storage and retrieval of the manifestations of content objects. ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005 defines a content object as 'any item that is to be described for inclusion in an information retrieval system, website, or other source of information'.[1] The thesaurus aids the assignment of preferred terms to convey semantic metadata associated with the content object.[2]

A thesaurus serves to guide both an indexer and a searcher in selecting the same preferred term or combination of preferred terms to represent a given subject. ISO 25964, the international standard for information retrieval thesauri, defines a thesaurus as a “controlled and structured vocabulary in which concepts are represented by terms, organized so that relationships between concepts are made explicit, and preferred terms are accompanied by lead-in entries for synonyms or quasi-synonyms.”

Vw caddy mk2 service manual. A thesaurus is composed by at least three elements: 1-a list of words (or terms), 2-the relationship amongst the words (or terms), indicated by their hierarchical relative position (e.g. parent/broader term; child/narrower term, synonym, etc.), 3-a set of rules on how to use the thesaurus. Mac os 32 bit download. Dxo photolab 2 elite edition 2 1 2 25.

History[edit]

Wherever there have been large collections of information, whether on paper or in computers, scholars have faced a challenge in pinpointing the items they seek. The use of classification schemes to arrange the documents in order was only a partial solution. Another approach was to index the contents of the documents using words or terms, rather than classification codes. In the 1940s and 1950s some pioneers, such as Calvin Mooers, Charles L. Bernier, Evan J. Crane and Hans Peter Luhn, collected up their index terms in various kinds of list that they called a “thesaurus” (by analogy with the well known thesaurus developed by Peter Roget).[3] The first such list put seriously to use in information retrieval was the thesaurus developed in 1959 at the E I Dupont de Nemours Company.[4][5]

The first two of these lists to be published were the Thesaurus of ASTIA Descriptors (1960) and the Chemical Engineering Thesaurus of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (1961), a descendant of the Dupont thesaurus. More followed, culminating in the influential Thesaurus of Engineering and Scientific Terms (TEST) published jointly by the Engineers Joint Council and the US Department of Defense in 1967. TEST did more than just serve as an example; its Appendix 1 presented Thesaurus rules and conventions that have guided thesaurus construction ever since.Hundreds of thesauri have been produced since then, perhaps thousands. The most notable innovations since TEST have been:(a) Extension from monolingual to multilingual capability; and (b) Addition of a conceptually organized display to the basic alphabetical presentation.

Here we mention only some of the national and international standards that have built steadily on the basic rules set out in TEST:

  • UNESCOGuidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. 1970 (followed by later editions in 1971 and 1981)
  • DIN 1463 Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. 1972 (followed by later editions)
  • ISO 2788 Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. 1974 (revised 1986)
  • ANSI American National Standard for Thesaurus Structure, Construction, and Use. 1974 (revised 1980 and superseded by ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993)
  • ISO 5964 Guidelines for the establishment and development of multilingual thesauri. 1985
  • ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Guidelines for the construction, format, and management of monolingual thesauri. 1993 (revised 2005 and renamed Guidelines for the construction, format, and management of monolingual controlled vocabularies.)
  • ISO 25964 Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies. Part 1 (Thesauri for information retrieval) published 2011; Part 2 (Interoperability with other vocabularies) published 2013.

The most clearly visible trend across this history of thesaurus development has been from the context of small-scale isolation to a networked world.[6] Access to information was notably enhanced when thesauri crossed the divide between monolingual and multilingual applications. More recently, as can be seen from the titles of the latest ISO and NISO standards, there is a recognition that thesauri need to work in harness with other forms of vocabulary or knowledge organization system, such as subject heading schemes, classification schemes, taxonomies and ontologies. The official website for ISO 25964 gives more information, including a reading list.[7]

Purpose[edit]

Www.thesaurus.com

In information retrieval, a thesaurus can be used as a form of controlled vocabulary to aid in the indexing of appropriate metadata for information bearing entities. A thesaurus helps with expressing the manifestations of a concept in a prescribed way, to aid in improving precision and recall. This means that the semantic conceptual expressions of information bearing entities are easier to locate due to uniformity of language. Additionally, a thesaurus is used for maintaining a hierarchical listing of terms, usually single words or bound phrases, that aid the indexer in narrowing the terms and limiting semantic ambiguity.

The Art & Architecture Thesaurus, for example, is used by countless museums around the world, to catalogue their collections. AGROVOC, the thesaurus of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, is used to index and/or search its AGRIS database of worldwide literature on agricultural research.

Structure[edit]

Information retrieval thesauri are formally organized so that existing relationships between concepts are made clear. For example, 'citrus fruits' might be linked to the broader concept of 'fruits' and to the narrower ones of 'oranges', 'lemons', etc. When the terms are displayed online, the links between them make it very easy to browse the thesaurus, selecting useful terms for a search. When a single term could have more than one meaning, like tables (furniture) or tables (data), these are listed separately so that the user can choose which concept to search for and avoid retrieving irrelevant results. For any one concept, all known synonyms are listed, such as 'mad cow disease', 'bovine spongiform encephalopathy', 'BSE', etc. The idea is to guide all the indexers and all the searchers to use the same term for the same concept, so that search results will be as complete as possible. If the thesaurus is multilingual, equivalent terms in other languages are shown too. Following international standards, concepts are generally arranged hierarchically within facets or grouped by themes or topics. Unlike a general thesaurus that is used for literary purposes, information retrieval thesauri typically focus on one discipline, subject or field of study.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ANSI & NISO 2005, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies, NISO, Maryland, U.S.A, p.11
  2. ^ANSI & NISO 2005, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies, NISO, Maryland, U.S.A, p.12
  3. ^Roberts, N. The pre-history of the information retrieval thesaurus. Journal of Documentation, 40(4), 1984, p.271-285.
  4. ^Aitchison, J. and Dextre Clarke, S. The thesaurus: a historical viewpoint, with a look to the future. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 37 (3/4), 2004, p.5-21.
  5. ^Krooks, D.A. and Lancaster, F.W. The evolution of guidelines for thesaurus construction. Libri, 43(4), 1993, p.326-342.
  6. ^Dextre Clarke, Stella G. and Zeng, Marcia Lei. From ISO 2788 to ISO 25964: the evolution of thesaurus standards towards interoperability and data modelingInformation standards quarterly, 24(1), 2012, p.20-26.
  7. ^ISO 25964 – the international standard for thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies. National Information Standards Organization, 2013.

Thesaurus Meaning

External links[edit]

Thesaurus Synonyms

  • TemaTres — Web application for management formal representations of knowledge, thesauri, taxonomies and multilingual vocabularies
  • BARTOC, Basel Register of Thesaurs, Ontologies & Classification.

Synonyms Finder Online

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thesaurus_(information_retrieval)&oldid=972105053'




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