Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Thesaurus
Thesaurus
The word thesaurus is derived from 16th century New Latin, in turn from Latin thesaurus, from ancient Greek θησαυρός thesauros, "store-house", "treasury". Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar, related, or opposite meanings (this new meaning of thesaurus dates back to Roget's Thesaurus). For example, a book of jargon for a specialised field; or more technically a list of subject headings and cross-references used in the filing and retrieval of documents (or indeed papers, certificates, letters, cards, records, texts, files, articles, essays and perhaps even manuscripts), film, sound recordings, machine-readable media, etc. The first example of this genre, Roget's Thesaurus, was published in 1852, having been compiled earlier, in 1805, by Peter Roget. Entries in Roget's Thesaurus are not listed alphabetically but conceptually and are a great resource for writers. Although including synonyms and antonyms, entries in a thesaurus should not be taken as a list of them. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Nor does a thesaurus entry define words. That work is left to the dictionary. In Information Technology, a thesaurus represents a database or list of semantically orthogonal topical search keys. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, a thesaurus may sometimes be referred to as an ontology. Thesaurus databases, created by international standards, are generally arranged hierarchically by themes and topics. Such a thesaurus places each term in context, allowing a user to distinguish between "bureau" the office and "bureau" the furniture. A thesaurus of this type is often used as the basis of an index for online material. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus, for example, is used to index the national databases of museums, Artefacts Canada, held by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN).
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Language
- Category: Linguistics
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Hemochromatosis
A disease that occurs when the body absorbs too much iron or receives many blood transfusions. The body stores the excess iron in the liver, pancreas, ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
tim.zhaotianqi
0
Terms
40
Blossaries
4
Followers
Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2014
Browers Terms By Category
- Marketing communications(549)
- Online advertising(216)
- Billboard advertising(152)
- Television advertising(72)
- Radio advertising(57)
- New media advertising(40)
Advertising(1107) Terms
- General law(5868)
- Courts(823)
- Patent & trademark(449)
- DNA forensics(434)
- Family law(220)
- Legal aid (criminal)(82)
Legal services(8095) Terms
- Cardboard boxes(1)
- Wrapping paper(1)
Paper packaging(2) Terms
- General accounting(956)
- Auditing(714)
- Tax(314)
- Payroll(302)
- Property(1)
Accounting(2287) Terms
- Industrial lubricants(657)
- Cranes(413)
- Laser equipment(243)
- Conveyors(185)
- Lathe(62)
- Welding equipment(52)