After a good dictionary, a thesaurus is the most useful word reference book in a writer’s library … provided you know how to use it.
The name ‘thesaurus’ comes from a Classical Greek word meaning ‘treasury’ or ‘store’, and a thesaurus is just that: a treasure-house of words. The thesaurus was invented in the mid-19th century by Peter Mark Roget who published, in 1852, his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, classified and arranged so as to facilitate the Expression of Ideas and assist in Literary Composition. Roget organized his work into a number of basic concepts, each of which was then broken down into subconcepts. Some modern thesauruses follow a modified version of Roget’s categories, while others have taken the basic idea and developed it in their own way. The Bloomsbury Thesaurus, for example, has 23 basic concepts, such as ‘Communication’. Each of these is then broken down into sections such as ‘Truth’ and ‘Falsehood’. These are then usually broken down into further sections such as ‘authenticity’ and within each of these sections words are grouped according to word class (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs).
The sections of the main part of the thesaurus are numbered with each aspect of a major theme being allocated its own number, for example: 699. Within each of these sections different aspects of the theme and different word classes (noun, adjective, etc.) are also numbered: 699.1, 699.2, and so on. At the end of the many of these subscriptions you will find cross-references to other parts of the thesaurus.
To help you find the word(s) you are looking for there is a substantial index, which refers you to the relevant numbered sections. Typically the index of a thesaurus occupies about one third of the whole book.
Finding what you are looking for in a thesaurus requires a certain amount of skill and commitment. An example is the best way of showing how it works. Suppose you want to describe the coat a woman is wearing and you want to say that it is of fake fur, but you don’t much like the word ‘fake’.
For more about words check out my book about words, Lexis.
Using the index
You begin by looking up the word ‘fake’ in the index. In the Bloomsbury Thesaurus, this produces the following list:
fake 699.12; 699.37; 96.12 artificial; 96.7 artificiality; 699.25 be fraudulent; 772.11 borrowed; 772.9 borrow illegally; 699.19 cheat; 125.2, 125.10 copy; 699.33 deceitful; 702.12 deceive; 700.15 deceiver; 699.39 disguised; 234.12 distort the truth; 234.8 exaggerated; 699.14 façade; 699.36 falsified; 699.26 falsify; 699.35 fraudulent; 702.10 hypocritical; 58.3 ice hockey; 772.3, 774.6 illegal borrowing; 125 imitation; 700.39 imitative; 699.28 mask; 58.9 play hockey; 46.15 play offence
It consists of all the occurrences of the word ‘fake’ in the main part of the thesaurus. As you can see, they are arranged thematically to help you locate what you are looking for. They also distinguish between the uses of ‘fake’ as a noun (‘artificiality’), and adjective (‘artificial’), and as a verb (‘borrow’).
If there is an entry in bold type at the beginning, it is always best to begin there. In this case there are two, and a quick check reveals that the first is for nouns (which we don’t want) and the second for adjectives (which we do):
699.37
fake, sham, mock, artificial, imitative, bogus, counterfeit, tinselled, rubbishy, junky, phoney (lnf), not all it’s cracked up to be (lnf)
It may be that this first entry will provide what you are looking for. Certainly ‘sham’, ‘mock’, ‘artificial’, and ‘imitative’ (or ‘imitation’) are possibilities. The Index, however, offers a number of other lines of enquiry. For example:
125.2
copy, reproduction, image, likeness, replica, model, working model, duplication, duplicate, imitation, dummy, mock-up, facsimile, photocopy, picture, portrait, pastiche (or pasticcio), fair copy, faithful copy, carbon copy, clone,doppelganger, simulation, fake, forgery, sham, bootleg, counterfeit, plagiarism, disguise, camouflage, crib (Inf), pony (US lnf), rip-off (lnf) 115—> Similarity; 561 Reproduction
This, in turn, suggests a further line of enquiry:
115
copy, photocopy, facsimile (or fax) (copy), stencil, duplicate, Mimeograph TM, photomechanical transfer (PMT), reproduction, imitation, close imitation, pirated record, twin, clone, trend, style, fashion, fad, bootleg copy (lnf) 117—> Conformity; 553 Fashion
And the trail could continue further, if you had the time and the inclination.
Are they useful?
A thesaurus won’t of itself make you a good writer or even necessarily improve your vocabulary. Apart from anything else you have to understand the shades of meaning between the different words you find – otherwise you are likely to make awkward mistakes. But there are situations when thesauruses can be invaluable. For example:
- The word is on the tip of your tongue but you can’t catch/find/remember it.
- You have a general purpose word for something but feel there ought to be a better one – something more vivid or precise, perhaps.
- You become aware that you have used a particular word a number of times and want to vary it a bit.
And just browsing through a thesaurus can be entertaining and education.
For more about words check out my book about words, Lexis.
Useful links
- http://www.visuwords.com/
This is described as an ‘online graphical dictionary’. When you enter a word in the search box, it produces a diagram ‘reminiscent of a neural net’ with spokes radiating out to related words and expressions. The shape and colour of the links indicate what the relationship between linked words is. If you double click on one of the words, it becomes the central node of a new diagram. - http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
This works in a similar way, but is not free. You can purchase a subscription, which offers a free trial, or purchase the software to install on your computer.