''Roget's Thesaurus'' is a widely used English-language

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym diction ...

, created in 1805 by Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), British

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

natural theologian Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science. This distinguishes it from ...

and

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...

History

It was released to the public on 29 April 1852. Roget was inspired by the Utilitarian teachings of Jeremy Bentham and wished to help "those who are painfully groping their way and struggling with the difficulties of composition ..this work processes to hold out a helping hand." The Karpeles Library Museum houses the original manuscript in its collection. Roget's schema of classes and their subdivisions is based on the philosophical work of Leibniz (see ), itself following a long tradition of

epistemological Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

work starting with

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

. Some of Aristotle's Categories are included in Roget's first class "abstract relations."

Content

Roget described his thesaurus in the foreword to the first edition: ''Roget's Thesaurus'' is composed of six primary classes. Each class is composed of multiple divisions and then sections. This may be conceptualized as a tree containing over a thousand branches for individual "meaning clusters" or semantically linked words. Although these words are not strictly

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are ...

, they can be viewed as colours or connotations of a meaning or as a spectrum of a concept. One of the most general words is chosen to typify the spectrum as its headword, which labels the whole group.

Editions

The original edition had 15,000

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

s and each successive edition has been larger,Roget's Thesaurus
Karcpeles Library with the most recent edition (the eighth) containing 443,000 words. The book is updated regularly and each edition is heralded as a gauge to contemporary terms; but each edition keeps true to the original classifications established by Roget. The name "Roget" is

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...

ed in parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom. By itself, it is not protected in the United States, where use of the name "Roget" in the title of a thesaurus does not necessarily indicate any relationship to Roget directly; it has come to be seen as a generic thesaurus name.

References

Bibliography

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External links