When was the thesaurus invented

Dating to the late 1st century or early 2nd century CE, the book lists Greek words that are similar in meaning to each another. Rather than compile a boring list of similar words, Amara Sinha turned his thesaurus into a long poem. Divided into three sections—words relating to the divine, the earth, and everyday life— The Amarakosha contains verses so readers could memorize words easily.

This thesaurus is the oldest book of its kind that still exists. Peter Mark Roget is the British doctor credited with authoring the first modern thesaurus. In , he began compiling a list of words, arranged by their meaning and grouped according to theme. After retiring from his work as a physician in , Roget published his Thesaurus of English words and phrases; so classified and arranged as to facilitate the expression of ideas and assist in literary composition.

In fact, we celebrate Thesaurus Day on January 18 because Roget was born on this day in The division between "words people" and "numbers people" is deep-seated. Many mathematicians may try to steer clear of thesauruses, and bibliophiles may avoid calculators, but the thesaurus is actually linked to a mathematical tool. Around , Roget invented the log-log slide rule, a ruler-like device that allows users to easily calculate the roots and exponents of numbers.

So while the inventor of the thesaurus was compiling words for his tome, he was also hard at work on the log-log slide rule. More Words At Play. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct. Homophones, Homographs, and Homonyms. Time Traveler. Love words? Need even more definitions? Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice?

Such a thesaurus places each term in context, allowing a user to distinguish between "bureau" the office and "bureau" the furniture. A thesaurus of this type is often used as the basis of an index for online material. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus , for example, is used to index the national databases of museums" Wikipedia article on Thesaurus, accessed The printing of the first edition was copies.

Image Source: twitter. The 15, words it contained were arranged conceptually rather than alphabetically, incorporating concepts, in six classes derived from Aristotelian, Leibnizian principles of classification: Abstraction Relations Space Matter Intellect Volition Affections The Thesaurus contained synonyms , in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations.