The word thesaurus comes from the Greek word thesauros, meaning ‘storehouse’ or ‘treasure’. This is an apt description, because a thesaurus is a kind of treasure trove of the language, allowing you to explore its richness and variety. By listing groups of words that have similar meanings to each other, a thesaurus offers a choice of alterV native words (synonyms) that can be used in place of one that you already have in mind.
Thus a thesaurus helps you to express yourself more accurately and in more interesting and varied ways. It is an invaluable tool for anyone who writes, whether for memos and reports at work, essays and dissertations at school and college, letters to business contacts, friends, or potential employers, or creative writing for a living or for pleasure. A thesaurus can provide the answer when a word is on the tip of your tongue, or it can expand your vocabulary to help you find new ways of saying what you want to. A thesaurus can also help in solving crossV word puzzles and with many other word games.
The Oxford Thesaurus of English, first published in 2000 and now appearing in its revised second edition, contains an unrivalled number of alternative and opposite words: well over 600,000 in total. It is the most comprehensive one-volume thesaurus available, including not only everyday words but also unusual and colourful words, specialist terms, and archaic and historical terms. There are approximately 16,000 entries, arranged A–Z, which means that you only have to go to one place to find what you are looking for, and there is no need for a bulky index. For each of those 16,000 entries, there is an average of 38 alternatives, carefully chosen and arranged to help you find the word you need as quickly as possible.
In addition to the standard entries, the Oxford Thesaurus of English offers an array of special features designed to enhance the usefulness and accessibility of the book. ‘Choose the Right Word’ panels explore in detail the differences between close synonyms such as brusque, abrupt, curt, and terse; the findings presented here are the result of sophisticated computational analysis of how these words are used in real English, giving the user the fullest and most accurate account available. Then there are over 1300 Word Links, at over 700 entries, to words which are not synonyms but which have another kind of relation to the headword: for example, at cat there are terms for the male and female cat (tom, queen) as well as the adjective relating to cats (feline).
Lastly, the central Wordfinder section offers hundreds of lists covering everything from types of cheese to species of bird and names of dances, ideal for crossword and word-game enthusiasts. For this revised edition the lists have been updated, reorganized into thematic groups to make them more browsable, and supplemented by brand-new lists of imitative, archaic, foreign, and other fascinating words drawn from the resources of Oxford Dictionaries. The whole section has been thoroughly indexed to make the information quickly accessible.
For a quick tour of the main features of the Oxford Thesaurus of English, look at the Guide. The Introduction gives more details on the contents and organization of the thesaurus and how to get the most out of it.