thesaurus
(θiːˈsɔːrəs)
Pl. -i.
[L., a. Gr. θησαυρός a store, treasure, storehouse, treasury.]
1. Archæol. A treasury, as of a temple, etc.
| 1823 in Crabb Technol. Dict. 1846 in Worcester. 1847 Grote Greece ii. ix. III. 44 Myrôn.. built at the same holy place [Olympia] a thesaurus..for the reception of commemorative offerings. |
2. A ‘treasury’ or ‘storehouse’ of knowledge, as a dictionary, encyclopædia, or the like.
| [1565 Cooper (title) Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ [etc.]. 1736 Ainsworth (title) Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ compendiarius; or..Dictionary of the Latin Tongue.] 1840 Mill Diss. & Disc. (1859) II. 461 A thesaurus of commonplaces for the discussion of questions. 1862 Marsh Lect. Eng. Lang. iii. 49 In a complete thesaurus of any language, the etymology of every word should exhibit both its philology and its linguistics. 1906 Westm. Gaz. 18 Dec. 2/2 This work is one of five thesauri published under the auspices of Kang Hsi, the second Emperor of the present dynasty. 1910 Spectator 20 Aug. 279/2 A thesaurus of critical learning. |
b. A collection of concepts or words arranged according to sense; also (U.S.) a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms.
| 1852 Roget (title) Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases classified and arranged [etc.]. 1898 ‘Mark Twain’ Autobiogr. (1924) I. 172 The fact that the writer's balance at the vocabulary bank has run short and that he is too lazy to replenish it from the thesaurus. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark (title) The American thesaurus of slang. 1960 W. Naylor Silver Birch Anthol. 8, I know how you have to polish and repolish, alter words, delete others, change sentences, consult the dictionary and the thesaurus, before you are satisfied. 1962 U. Weinreich in Householder & Saporta Probl. Lexicogr. 30 The grouping of synonyms along a continuum yields a thesaurus, like Roget's. 1975 (title) Family word finder: a new thesaurus of synonyms and antonyms in dictionary form. |
c. A classified list of terms, esp. key-words, in a particular field, for use in indexing and information retrieval.
| 1957 H. Brownson in Proc. Internat. Study Conference on Classification for Information Retrieval 100 The best answer..may be the application of a mechanized thesaurus based on networks of related meanings. 1961 Aslib Proc. XIII. 265 We decided to..designate the analytical compilation a ‘thesaurus’. 1965 Revue Internat. de Documentation XXXII. 21/1 It has become commonplace to hear of retrieval systems embodying a thesaurus. In this context a thesarus usually means an arrangement of a vocabulary of terms in each group being connected in some defined way. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia IX. 572/2 The second stage should be a fully automatic selection and matching process, preferably using a thesaurus. |