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Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students

Thesaurus basics

Thesaurus basics

The basic purpose of a thesaurus is to provide you with synonyms, words that have a similar meaning to one you already have in mind and so can be used as substitutes for it. Being able to choose the right synonyms and use them appropriately is very important when writing in all types of situations, from essays to job application letters while you are at college and later in your chosen career.

A good thesaurus will help you to:

• avoid repeating a word in the same sentence or paragraph
• make sure that you get your message across in the clearest and most effective way
• express yourself with precision
• increase your vocabulary

Getting to know the features of your thesaurus and understanding the way in which it's organized will help you to get the most out of the information it contains. As well as lists of synonyms, most modern thesauruses also include other features that can help you improve your writing.

Find out more about the kinds of special features you may find in a thesaurus

Thesaurus or dictionary?

When you are evaluating and selecting vocabulary, thesauruses and dictionaries have different roles to play. These are some of the main differences between the two:

• The synonyms in a thesaurus will give you an idea of what a word means, but they aren't the same as the accurate definitions you'll find in a dictionary. If you don't know what a word means, or aren't completely sure of its meaning, you need to look it up in a dictionary. This will give you a full profile of the word's different senses, together with other information, such as how to pronounce the word and where it originally came from.
• A thesaurus only contains entries for selected words and doesn't set out to list all the words in the language. Basically, it only contains words for which there are genuine alternatives with similar meanings, so you won't find entries for words like giraffe, computer, or futon, for example.
• You aren't likely to find specialist or scientific senses of words covered in a thesaurus. Here are two entries for the same word, hamstring. The first is from the Compact Oxford Dictionary for Students and the second from its companion thesaurus, the Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students.

You can see that the thesaurus entry does not cover the literal noun sense of hamstring, i.e. 'one of the tendons at the back of the knee', because there are no synonyms for it. Nor does it cover the literal sense of the verb, 'cripple a person or animal by cutting their hamstrings'. But it does cover the verb's extended, or non-literal meaning, i.e. 'prevent someone or something from taking action or making progress' because there are genuine synonyms for this.

Thesaurus AND dictionary

Since thesauruses and dictionaries have such different purposes, it isn't a question of choosing one or the other. A thesaurus provides you with a range of alternative words to choose from, but you need a dictionary to find the precise meaning of unfamiliar words or if you're in doubt about the suitability of a word in a thesaurus.

For example, suppose you have written the following sentence in an essay about the government's anti-smoking campaign:

She states that earlier campaigns aimed at persuading people to smoke outside public buildings rather than persuading them to stop smoking altogether.

You might feel that it would be better not to repeat persuading and look for some alternatives in a thesaurus. Whichever thesaurus you are using, it's very likely that you'll find inveigle listed as a synonym for persuade. Here's the entry from the Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students:

At first sight, inveigle might seem to be a good, fresh-sounding alternative for persuade, but it has subtle differences of meaning and it isn't always a good substitute.

If you aren't completely familiar with the meaning of inveigle, you'd need to check its dictionary definition. On looking it up in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students you would see that it actually means 'to persuade someone to do something by deception or flattery', which is a quite specific form of persuasion. You would probably decide that inveigle isn't a good synonym for persuade on this occasion, and choose another alternative from the original list of synonyms, e.g.:

She states that earlier campaigns aimed at persuading people to smoke outside public buildings rather than prevailing on them to stop smoking altogether.

Get more guidance on choosing the best synonyms