Thesaurus

The word thesaurus, New Latin for treasure, was coined in the early 1820s. Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar, related, or opposite meanings. For example, a book of jargon for a specialized 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.

Related Topics:
New Latin - 1820s - Treasury - Storehouse - Jargon - Certificate - Letter - Card - File - Article - Essay - Manuscript

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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 listed alphabetically and are a great resource for writers.

Related Topics:
Genre - Roget's Thesaurus - 1852 - 1805 - Peter Roget - Writer

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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.

Related Topics:
Synonym - Antonym - Dictionary

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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.

Related Topics:
Information Technology - Artificial Intelligence - Ontology

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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).

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