WritingThoughts

Is that perfect word right on the tip of your tongue – but you can’t quite figure it out? You may need a thesaurus. A thesaurus can help you find words of the same, or similar, meaning.

Fortunately, there are some good thesaurus links online. Here is my unofficial review of some online thesaurus sites.

1. Thesaurus.com. This is the sister site to Dictionary.com. When I typed in the word “happy,” the site was able to identify the part of speech for the word. It also returned an amazing 46 synonyms (similar words) and two antonyms (opposites). This sources bases its information on Roget’s New Millenniumâ„¢ Thesaurus, First Edition. (Roget’s Thesaurus is the one that I became familiar with in my college days.)

2. Merriam-Webster Online. The online Merriam Webster dictionary also offers a thesaurus. The synonyms here appear to be based on the word’s definition. When I typed the word “happy” into this thesaurus, I was given five different definitions for the word. Each definition has its own unique synonym. If this is all there is to this thesaurus, it seemed a little bit limited to me.

3. Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus. This tool requires a Java Runtime Environment. Since I’m not working on my regular equipment and since the computer that I’m working on does not have Java Runtime Environment installed, I was unable to test this thesaurus. This disappointed me since I was really interested in the concept of this thesaurus. It appears to have an interactive graphic interface that resembles a mind-map. If you’ve used this tool, let me know if you like it.

If you missed the first installment of this series, on online dictionaries, here is the link.

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.