Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms.
- n. A book of selected words or concepts, such as a specialized vocabulary of a particular field, as of medicine or music.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A treasury; a store; especially, thesaurus verborum, or simply thesaurus, a treasury of words; a lexicon.
Wiktionary
- n. A publication, usually in the form of a book, that provides synonyms (and sometimes antonyms) for the words of a given language.
- n. A dictionary or encyclopedia.
- n. A hierarchy of subject headings—canonic titles of themes and topics, the titles serving as search keys.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A treasury or storehouse; hence, a repository, especially of knowledge; -- often applied to a comprehensive work, like a dictionary or cyclopedia.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a book containing a classified list of synonyms
Etymologies
- Latin thēsaurus, treasury, from Greek thēsauros.
Examples
“First there is a dig about people who write pretentiously: in blogworld, demonstrable ownership of a thesaurus is shorthand for 'good writing style”
“A lot of people seem to think the ability to use a thesaurus is all it takes to be a good writer.”
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.”
“From Stephen King: Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.”
“Yes, but does Blethen know what a thesaurus is and how to use it?”
“Great - somebody got a freakin thesaurus and a word of the day calendar for christmas.”
“The word thesaurus, as we are continually told in the prefaces to books dealing with synonyms, comes from the Greek word meaning ` treasury. ”
“Dissatisfied with the stilted term thesaurus, he cast about for the mot juste and happily came up with promptory (derived from a Medieval Latin word meaning ` storehouse, repository ') as a better name for a book constructed for prompt reference and to prompt those who search for the right word.”
“Of course, if you are looking for synonyms then a thesaurus is a wonderful guide, the most famous being Roget’s Thesaurus.”
“Caitlin ...... [keekee jo] says: not to cheating i mean to byron the "thesaurus" - a small dinosaur that often uses fluttery language to extracate itself from possibly harmful situations says: im trying to find a way to put this so if i dont get it right the first time i'll try again later”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thesaurus’.
-
Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
-
•Dinosaurs that weren't, but should have been
piscidactyl, legosaurus, monodactyl, bigassmealontheho..., opensaurus, hacksaurus, phelpsasaurus, nastiasaur, clavicytherium, compusaurus, textodactyl, pterostegoraptor and 55 more...
milosrdenstvi From the Greek word meaning "treasury". Dec 29, 2010
bilby
http://owni.eu/files/2010/12/bent17.jpg">
Dec 29, 2010
reesetee Rock and Roll, Thesaurusized. Aug 20, 2009
PossibleUnderscore Nice sign bilby!!
Synonyms of Thesaurus: glossary, language reference book, lexicon, onomasticon, reference book, sourcebook, storehouse of words, terminology, treasury of words, vocabulary, word list
Jul 19, 2009
bilby Welcome. Jul 19, 2009
sionnach thesaurus: A book, publication, volume, manuscript, opus in which one finds, seeks, searches, locates, traces, ferrets for a synonym, alternative, equivalent, similar, substitute word, lexeme, term. Jul 23, 2008
whichbe What's a synonym for "thesaurus"?
May 6, 2008