Customer Reviews

Random House Webster's College Thesaurus

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The Random House Webster's College Thesaurus, although somewhat thin, is an excellent resource, ranking among the highest. Most words in the English language have multiple meanings, converse forms, similar sounds and spellings in relation to other words, and outlandish synonyms ranging from before the Twelfth century through the Ninties. This thesaurus is not limited to only older words, terms, and phrases: but also contains slang and many new words and terms. It supplies a brief but adequate sentence for each listed word, phrase, and term, as well as for their different forms (i.e. adverbs, nouns, verbs, etc.) to sufficiently define their uses. I also enjoy the fact that this thesaurus lists antonyms, for sometimes I can think of a word, but I can't think of the word that I need, which is the exact opposite. In todays fast-paced world, everyone wants things simple and fast. Another exceptional advantage to owning this thesaurus is that it allows the reader to find what they need without searching for hours, using countless dictionaries and thesaurus's, laid out on their table. Although this thesaurus doesn't meet the criteria to qualify as the best thesaurus, it certainly exceeds the standards set by persons such as myself. I highly recommend adding this book to your personal library.

I compared all the thesauruses in three bookstores and ended up selecting this one. First, it lists words alphabetically (not all thesauruses do). Second, it lists more synonyms than most other thesauruses. With some thesauruses you are given a few synonyms and then referred to a related word to look up and find more synonyms. This related word will then likewise give a short list of synonyms and refer the reader to yet another word. This is an interesting way to explore related words, but it's time consuming. I just perfer a long list of synonyms with each word. Third, the Random House gives one or two easy to understand sentences for each sub-meaning, or sense, of a word, followed by a list of the synonyms related to that sense. Other thesauruses will often give a *definition* of the sub-meaning, but I liked seeing the word usage in a complete sentence.
Picking out a dictionary was much more difficult, as each has it's pros and cons, but this was a clear winner, to my thinking, among the thesaureses that I looked at.