10 Things (Findings, Facts) You Didn’t Know About the Thesaurus

Roget’s Thesaurus is the Most Used Thesaurus successful the English-Speaking World

Created successful 1805 and archetypal published successful 1852, this well-known publication was created by Peter Mark Roget, a retired doc from London. While the archetypal variation contained “only” 15,000 words, the newest, eighth variation contains 443,000 words and is updated consistently to enactment existent with caller uses of language.

Roget’s Was Not the First Thesaurus to beryllium Publicly Available

The Amarakosha is simply a thesaurus successful past Sanskrit by the student Amarasimha, astir apt sometime successful the 6th century, and it is 1 of the earliest surviving examples of a textbook of connection organization. Additional earlier thesaurus-like books included John Wilkin’s Alphabetical Dictionary (1668), which grouped synonyms together, Hester Lynch Piozzi’s British Synonymy (1794), and George Crabb’s English Synonyms Explained (1818). Each of these books was mostly focused connected helping writers find synonyms directly, alternatively than classifying words arsenic Roget did. Some aboriginal thesaurus authors, similar Wilkin, besides hoped that the survey of connection and synonyms would pb to the instauration of a cosmopolitan connection that would beryllium utilized by radical of antithetic nationalities and backgrounds to pass with 1 another.

Roget May Have Been Influenced by His Mental Health

Peter Mark Roget was calved successful Soho, London, and helium mislaid his begetter astatine a young age. He past trained arsenic a doc and practiced for a fewer decades earlier retiring and preparing the thesaurus for publishing starting successful 1840. It was theorized by his biographers that Roget suffered from semipermanent slump and that his classification system, which would yet go the thesaurus, arose from Roget keeping notebooks of connection lists arsenic a coping mechanism.

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Roget’s is Not the Only Thesaurus

While Roget’s enactment has go synonymous with the modern thesaurus successful galore ways, different types bash exist. Collins Thesaurus, for example, is an online mentation that includes abilities for translation and is compiled by lexicographers with the purpose to bespeak planetary variations successful the English language. Merriam-Webster besides publishes a thesaurus, that includes antonyms, adjacent antonyms, and synonym usage examples. Oxford publishes a thesaurus designed for writers, with versions for American English and British English. Multiple specialized thesauri besides beryllium successful a assortment of subjects.

Many Thesaurus Creators Were Inspired by Utopian and Utilitarian Philosophies

When Roget published the archetypal variation of his thesaurus helium wrote that helium had begun the task successful bid to “supply my ain deficiencies” and hoped it would assistance different writers bash the same. Roget, and different thesaurus authors similar Wilkin, were drawn to the doctrine of Utilitarianism, which prioritized maximizing the happiness and well-being of those progressive with a dilemma oregon situation. Thesaurus creators hoped that by simplifying and classifying language, they would marque some penning and connection learning easier for their users.