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Companion Website
Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students
Extra features in a thesaurus
Extra features in a thesaurus
Making use of opposite words (antonyms)
Most thesauruses include a selection of opposite words, or antonyms. In the Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students, you will find these marked as OPPOSITES at the end of a main entry or part of speech.
Antonyms can be useful on those frustrating occasions when you can only think of a word that means the opposite of the one you actually want. Suppose you need a word to describe the way an institution or organization came to an end but can only think of a word for starting one, such as found.
- On 25 May the regional assembly was [the opposite of founded].
If you look up found in the Compact Oxford Thesaurus for Students, you'll see the words dissolve, liquidate, and abandon listed as 'Opposites' at the end of the entry and you could then pick one to fill the gap in the sentence above. The best choice would probably be dissolve.
- On 25 May the regional assembly was dissolved.
Of course, you might find that none of the opposite words listed exactly fits the context you have in mind. In that case, choose the one that's nearest to the meaning you want and look it up in turn. The likelihood is that it will have a main entry of its own where you'll find a wider selection of alternatives. If you looked up dissolve, you'd see that it has various different meanings, so you'd need to make sure you located the right one (sense 3).
dissolve verb 1 his hopes dissolved: disappear, vanish, melt away, evaporate, disperse, dissipate, disintegrate; dwindle, fade, wither.
2 the crowd dissolved: disperse, disband, break up, scatter.
3 the assembly was dissolved: disband, close down, break up, wind up, bring to an end, end, terminate, discontinue, abolish.
4 their marriage was dissolved: annul, nullify, void, invalidate.
OPPOSITES: appear, gather, found.
Other features
As well as lists of synonyms and antonyms, most modern thesauruses include other features designed to help you use language more confidently and more accurately. They may include any or all of the following types of information:
USAGE
Do not confuse flare with flair: flare means 'to burn or shine with sudden intensity' or 'to become wider', whereas flair means 'a natural ability or talent' (he had a real flair for design).
Precise does not mean exactly the same as accurate. Accurate means 'correct in all details', while precise contains the idea of trying to specify details exactly. If you say 'The time is 4.04 and 12 seconds' you are being precise, but not necessarily accurate(the clock you are looking at might be slow).
experience noun
1 her business experience was invaluable: skill, knowledge, practical knowledge, understanding; background, record, history; informal know-how.
2 his first experience of business:
involvement in, participation in, contact with, acquaintance with, exposure to, observation of, awareness of, insight into.
3 an unforgettable experience: event, occurrence, incident, happening, episode; adventure, exploit, escapade.
verb the company has experienced some difficulties: encounter , undergo, come up against, meet, run into, come across, face, be faced with, come into contact with.
WORD LINKS
empirical based on experience and observation rather than theory or logic
USAGE
The term oriental is now regarded as old-fashioned and potentially offensive as a
term referring to people from eastern Asia. In US English, Asian is the standard accepted term in modern use. In British English, where Asian tends to refer to people from the Indian subcontinent, specific terms such as Chinese or Japanese are preferable, while South-East Asian has also emerged as a more general term. The word Asiatic, while
standard in scientific and technical use, can be offensive when used of individual people and should be avoided in that context.
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