A thesaurus is a huge vocabulary of synonyms arranged in alphabetical order.
The difference between a dictionary and a thesaurus is that the dictionary gives definitions of words in the same language or gives a translation of the word into another language, whereas the thesaurus gives synonyms, i.e. different words with the same meaning. The thesaurus can be used by writers, poets, translators and anyone who wants to use language rich in the texts he writes.
In the past, the thesaurus was a book whose words were arranged in a long list. Today there is already vocabulary software on your computer.
The day of the thesaurus was set for January 18 because it was the birthday of Peter Mark Roger who was born in 1779, and he is the man who collected and published the first thesaurus called "the thesaurus of Roger". He began working on it in 1805 and published it in 1852. The book of course was handwritten.
The name Thesaurus comes from the Greek θησαυρός and means treasure.
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Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget Source |