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.
Thesaurus.com definition, a popular online thesaurus of synonyms and antonyms: I always shoot over to Thesaurus.com when I find I'm using the same word over and over. Who knew there were so many ways to express an idea! Go to Thesaurus.com. Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations. The main source of TheFreeDictionary's general English dictionary is Houghton Mifflin's premier dictionary, the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.This authoritative work is the largest of the American Heritage® dictionaries and contains over 200,000 boldface terms and more than 33,000 written examples. Thesarus.com has been informing visitors about topics such as Synonyms, Thesaurus Online and Thesaurus Dictionary. Join thousands of satisfied visitors who discovered Synonyms and Antonyms, Antonyms and Dictionary. Thesaurus is a free online multilingual tool that looks for the synonyms of a given word in the following languages: English, Italian, French, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian and Russian. Nice comments and useful comments are the only reason to make this application better. Features: ♦ Multi-language Thesaurus: English, Italian, French, Czech.
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
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]
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]
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:
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]
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]
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]
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]
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 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]
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]
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.
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:
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]
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.
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.