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thesaurus
noun
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In the early 19th century, archaeologists borrowed the Latin word thesaurus to denote an ancient treasury, such as that in a temple. Soon after, the word was metaphorically applied to a book containing a treasury of words or information about a particular field. In 1852, the English scholar Peter Mark Roget published his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, in which he listed a treasury of semantically related words organized into numerous categories. This work led to the common acceptance of the term thesaurus to refer to "a book of words and their synonyms." The word developed another meaning in the 1950s, when thesaurus began being used in the field of word processing to refer to a list of related terms used for indexing and retrieval.
Examples of thesaurus in a Sentence
Jeffrey Weiss, Artforum, 1 May 2025
Throughout the thesaurus series there is a recurrence of words in Yiddish, a language Bochner—whose parents were first-generation Jewish immigrants—was raised hearing at home.
—Jeffrey Weiss, Artforum, 1 May 2025
The Sacramento Kings coach might need a thesaurus with the type of season his high-scoring guard is having.
—Joe Reedy, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Mar. 2024
Everything that Coltrane ever played was in that thesaurus.
—David Marchese, Vulture, 4 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Thesaurus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thesaurus. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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thesaurus
noun
from scientific Latin thesaurus "treasury, storehouse, book of words," from Latin thesaurus "treasure, collection," from Greek thēsauros (same meaning) — related to treasure
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