Roget's International Thesaurus, 8th Edition: The World's Bestselling and Essential Vocabulary Builder for Writers and Students

by Barbara Ann Kipfer

A newly revised and updated 8th edition of the world’s bestselling thesaurus—the only thesaurus based on Peter Roget’s original reference classic of 1852. This hardcover thumb-indexed edition includes more than 443,000 words and phrases grouped into 1,075 categories.

The revolutionary achievement of Dr. Roget was his development of a new principle: the grouping of words according to ideas. If the user cannot find something in a reference book, it is often because of the restriction of searching alphabetically by ‘known’ headwords. Dr. Roget’s thesaurus thus reversed the access to allow the user to find a word from another word, a concept or an idea. When in 1852 Roget published the first book ever to realize this concept with thoroughness and precision, he called it a “thesaurus” (from the Greek and Latin, meaning “treasury” or “storehouse”). And thesaurus it has remained to this day.

The ultimate reference tool, this new edition contains over 443,000 words and phrases grouped into 1,075 numbered categories. Within each category you’ll find all the parts of speech, frequent cross-references, commonly-used words singled out in boldface, quotes that puts words into context , hundreds of fascinating and idiosyncratic word lists and much more. If you’re a writer who needs help organizing a thought or mastering the nuance of expression, Roget's International Thesaurus® remains the first source to turn to.

Genres: Reference, Writing, Nonfiction, Language, Linguistics, Education, Music

1200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Dr. Barbara Ann Kipfer (born in 1954) is a lexicographer,as well as an archaeologist. She has written more than 60 books, including 14,000 Things to be Happy About (Workman), which has more than a million copies in print and has given rise to many Page-a-Day calendars. The 25th anniversary edition of the book was published in October 2014. She is the editor of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Kipfer is Chief Lexicographer of the company Temnos. She has worked for such companies as Google, Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, Answers.com, Ask Jeeves, Bellcore/Telcordia, Federated Media Publishing, General Electric Research, IBM Research, idealab, Knowledge Adventure, Textdigger, The Chicago Tribune, and WolframAlpha. Barbara holds a PhD and MPhil in Linguistics (University of Exeter), a PhD in Archaeology (Greenwich University), an MA and a PhD in Buddhist Studies (Akamai University), and a BS in Physical Education (Valparaiso University).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[notgettingenough]

I got a personal message on Goodreads the other day by somebody spruiking his new book site. It was great, he said, you can chat to people about books on it. After making the obvious point that he was telling me that on a site where people chat about books, he enthusiastically assured me that if I just went and had a look, I'd see....

So I did. Book-talks.com You need a login to see chat rooms, but you can see books and their blurbs without that. I zeroed in on The Great Gatsby on account of how it's more or less my favourite book. And this is what I read:

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel composed by American creator F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the anecdotal towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the late spring of 1922. The story essentially concerns the youthful and baffling mogul Jay Gatsby and his eccentric energy and fixation on the excellent previous debutante Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby investigates topics of debauchery, vision, protection from change, social change and abundance, making a representation of the Roaring Twenties that has been depicted as a useful example in regards to the American Dream.

Something odd is going on here. It's either been written by a non-native person with a thesaurus...or an algorithm? I put a sentence into google and discovered the answer.

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. Many literary critics consider The Great Gatsby to be one of the greatest novels ever written.[1][2][3][4]

The story of the book primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession with the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval and excess, creating a portrait of the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary[a] tale regarding the American Dream.[5][6]

The blurb has been taken lock stock and barrel from wiki's The Great Gatsby entry and a thesaurus loving algorithm has changed some words to make it 'original'. The comparisons between the two are hilarious. It would make a nice lesson for school kids on understanding what a thesaurus is and the dangers of using it.

[Peacenow]

Besides being a "use-full" book, I consider Roget's a sort of "holy" book. I could write a book about this book; not a biography of the author, but, how this book can change one's life..., how it can guide and order a life. It has so much power. Perhaps I'll take on the project of explaining the way I perceive this book; how I use it. I've tried, verbally, but always fail and leave the listener yawning. I will work on it, and change this review when its done.

For now, let it suffice... get the oldest edition possible. I've collected quite a few. Make sure you have the preface, dedication and Roget's own preface to the first edition (it's great reading what the man who wrote the book on words wrote)(and so humble, too!) and of course the listing/synopsis of the Categories. One can order one's life with this list.

Through Goodreads' suggestions I find "The Man Who Made Lists" (Roget's biography) by Joshua Kendall and plan to read it right away. Thanks!

Does anyone know of a [study:] of the Synopsis of Catagories?

[Tomijo Gale]

A desk without a good thesaurus is like a house without windows.

[James]

Just got this, and it's still the best - "The original Roget's", as the dust jacket says. The way it's organized is counter-intuitive, at least for me, but it works better than anything else I've found. I've been accumulating - collecting sounds too organized - dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri?) since I was a teenager, and I always come back to the original-format Roget's. Believing that using exactly the right word is important, for me this book would be worth buying at twice the price.

[Megan]

Yes, I literally read the thesaurus. Twice. I'm not pretentious, I just love words!

[E.J. Matze]

synonums, but also antonyms


Roget's Thesaurus of synonums & antonyms
Easy to use
Complete Index
Many New Words
Over 100,000 words
Select the Right Word
Classification of Words
Key Words in Bold Type

[Katie]

At first, I thought the back index was a cumbersome extra step to accommodate a poor organizational choice.
Absolutely wrong on my part. This thing is beautifully done.

There have been a few things I tried to find so far and couldn’t, but what is there is superb. The inclusion of phrases gives it a leg up on other thesauruses. Reading it feels traveling a current. Each group of concepts flows into the next, and there are shiny, unexpected pebbles all over the river bed. You could happily drown in it.

Highly recommend for anyone who worries that they’ve exhausted the finite combinations of words in the English language.

Really, really outstanding and inspiring to use. 💛

Edit to add: I suspect it’s thick enough to kill a man, if thrown properly, which is a sure hallmark of any decent printed thesaurus.

[Michael]

It worked for Sylvia Plath!

[John Hawkins]

Hard to read. Just kept saying the same thing over and over but in different words.

[Nathan Meier]

A pretty good resource for finding synonyms.

[Aldean]

I forget the precise point in my life where I finally got my hands on this magnificent volume; it was either late in high school or in the ramp-up to college. But whenever it was, it was a watershed moment.

This is definitely a tool that takes some getting used to, particularly if you have already been using an alphabetical-entry thesaurus. The Roget's, with its categories and its massive index (it must be a third of the page count) was very daunting and a bit unfriendly to a young user. But once I figured out how the book worked, I was in word heaven. I could not imagine not having this within arm's reach while doing writing of any sort now.

[Zhukora]

Roget's unique categorical organization of words makes it an enduring classic. It was, perhaps, slightly more difficult to figure out how to use when I was a child than alphabetically-organized thesauri, but once I understood the system, Roget's helped engender a love of words in me that assured me top marks on the SAT, GRE, and the verbal sections of all other standardized tests. I actually read this thesaurus for fun![return][return]It seems odd to be so passionate about a reference book, but the fact remains: no other thesaurus will ever be allowed in my house.

[Gary]

maybe one of the few books on my shelves really deserving the five-star rating.

indispensable.

i'm not sure if this edition has the format i prefer: a dictionary in the back, and the front arranged with synonyms opposite antonyms all arranged by concept (from abstract to specific)

not only indispensable but for anyone reading english as a second-language, required

[Patricia Burroughs]

A friend of mine scoffed at my high school era thesaurus, as she vastly preferred the older 1946 edition. Tracking down a copy for myself was the first step in what has turned into a collection of Roget's Thesauri. It's definitely different from the later editions. I can't say it's better or worse, but I do like checking between them from time to time when I'm not finding quite the right word.

[John]

I don't know who this Roger guy is, but I have to say, this book confused the hell out of me. If there’s a plot, I couldn’t find one, or any main characters. Also, it seems awfully repetitive, and where the hell was the Minotaur?

[Benjamin Rubenstein]

Whew I finally flipped through all half a million words and 1,350 pages...sike! Though I did spend half an hour learning about this behemoth and how to use it, and I feel strong about my acquisition and future choices of my written words.

[Jorn Barger]

the alphabetical versions are for cowards-- wrestle with the numbering system as a steppingstone to understanding the semantic web, etc

[Textmaven]

Roget is my hero. A marvel of hierarchies.

[Brenda]

Best thesaurus ever! I own an old and battered third edition, but you couldn't pay me to part with it.

[Jim]

EXPERIENCED WRITERS SHOULD AVOID THESE "VERSIONS"...

"Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus" (subtitle: "in dictionary form")

"Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form"

It's telling that Amazon (@2023FEB) offers no "look inside" teaser for this pretender. Most likely this hides the inherent inadequacy of the dictionary form.

"New American Roget's College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form"

This DOES have a look-inside feature - and it confirms my fear - that the concept-based organization (used in the various International versions) is destroyed. Grouping by concept offers a rich set of alternate ideas that can cause the writer to abandon "the word" and use other ideas to enrich the narrative.

I found this, which states the contrast very well:

Roget's original organization is so much richer. Roget's format (non-dictionary) provides 50-times more synonyms and surrounds entries with pages of context. Dictionary format only provides several synonyms - period - no context, only a very limited and flat view.

TO BE "FAIR"

It seems likely that there is a "market" for the dictionary form thesarus. IF one is not a reader, with the attendant consequence for one's writing, this type may well fill the bill.

Others should FIRST try the full-strength versions. When I encountered Roget's International Thesaurus, 4th Edition , it was immediately plain that THIS, concept-ordered thesaurus is the superior one to acheive nuance and to refine style.

EDITION FIVE

Many copies are available for six dollars - go get one!

[D]

The gold standard for all thesauruses.

[S Jean Schultze]

As gripping a literary work as could be produced without plot or characters!

[Bess]

Regardless of the vast options for internet resources on how to write well, a hard copy of a Thesaurus is invaluable. It was useful for school and useful for writing today.

[Disa]

Less repetitive than I feared.

[Izhan]

Just learned 5 different ways to say “holy shit”

[Mary Catelli]

Usually I read a book twice, to be sure, before reviewing. This one, however, I haven't read through even once.


Roget's International Thesaurus was not designed to be read. It's wonderful for browsing, though.

The real charm to it is that it is organized by topic, not alphabetically. You can drill down from the overarching concepts or look up the section in the index in the back. But once you have gotten to it -- well, in an alphabetical one, since they have to repeat the synonyms for each word, they have to limit their size. For this one, under "Light" they have nearly two pages covering nouns -- shine, glitter, flash, daylight, iridescence -- verbs -- shine, luminesce, illuminate -- and adjectives -- bright, flashing, illuminating -- each of which words is beginning of a paragraph of closely related words, among many such clumps.

It's not a book for reading, but anyone in love with words will find it a nice book for browsing.

[Ruth Ann]

An online thesaurus is convenient but lacking the nuances of an actual hardcopy of this spectacular international thesaurus, which makes users look up words (ideas) in the index where we will find its closest synonyms. When we choose the closest synonym, we are sent to a numbered section filled with more words - heaven!

Long ago, I inherited my dad's paperback version of this book. It fell apart over time. I rescued this hardcover from book sale donations.

A downloadable version is available through Project Gutenberg.

[Jewce]

Yes, I read an entire thesaurus, thank you. I unpretentiously but diligently devoured it cover to cover in approximately 4 hours and now I am not bragging about it, but merely informing you of my accomplishment. Ah, the review. I found it trite, convoluted, and absurd. It was ingenuous in its rare attempts at humor.

[HeavyReader]

Even though I've had this book since I graduated from high school in 1989 (thanks Ms. Delcarpio!), I have not read the whole thing. Show me someone who has read the enitre Roget's Thesaurus, and I will applaud that person for being a bigger word geek than I am.

This book has helped me so much with my writing. When I need a new word, this book is where I turn. I love it!

[Mel]

A gift from my dad--was it seventh grade? Sometime in middle school. And I took it to college with me. Forget Merriam-Webster online--this is one of my most valuable possessions! It's full of not just synonyms, but literary references and turns-of-phrase.