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Thesaurus
The word thesaurus is New Latin for treasure; coined in the early 1820's. Besides its meaning as a treasury or storehouse, it more commonly means a listing of words with similar or related meanings. For example, a book of jargon for a specialized field; or more generally a list of subject headings and cross-references used in the filing and retrieval of documents. (Or indeed papers, certificates, letters, cards, records, texts, files, articles, essays and perhaps even manuscripts.)
The first example of this genre, Roget's Thesaurus, was published in 1852, having been compiled earlier, in 1805, by Peter Roget.
Although including synonyms, entries in a thesaurus should not be taken as a list of synonyms. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Nor does a thesaurus entry define words. That work is left to the dictionary.
In Information Technology, a thesaurus represents a database or list of semantically orthogonal topical search keys. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, a thesaurus may sometimes be referred to as an ontology.
Examples
- Thesaurus of English Words & Phrases (ed. P. Roget); ISBN 0062720376, see: Roget's Thesaurus.
- Webster's New World Thesaurus (ed. C. Laird); ISBN 0671519832
- Oxford American Desk Thesaurus (ed. C. Lindberg); ISBN 0195126742
- Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier; ISBN 0679400303, an unusual blend of thesaurus, dictionary, and glossary.
Specialized
- Evaluation Thesaurus (by. M. Scriven); ISBN 0803943644
- Great Song Thesaurus (by R. Lax & F. Smith); ISBN 0195054083
- Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (APA); ISBN 1557987750
- Clinician's Thesaurus, (by E.Zuckerman); ISBN 157230569X
External Links
See also: Dictionary
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ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Monolingual Thesaurus Creation Standard
Download site for Z39.19 thesaurus creation standard, which is enumerative and monolingual in nature.
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-19.html
Zthes: a Z39.50 Profile for Thesaurus Navigation
Describes an abstract model for representing and searching thesauri, specifying how the model may be implemented. Uses of Z39.50 protocol and XML DTD for thesauri are described.
http://zthes.z3950.org/
Large-Scale Controlled Vocabulary Indexing for Named Entities
Paper discussing the implementation of a named entity thesaurus by Lexis-Nexis. [PDF Format]
http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/A/A00/A00-1038.pdf
Thesaurus Principles and Practice
Discusses the basics of thesaurus construction and management. From Willpower Information Management Consultants.
http://www.willpower.demon.co.uk/thesprin.htm
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