Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
80 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just Like the Title Says: Best Book for Finding Synonyms., February 21, 2004
"The Synonym Finder" is a thesaurus in dictionary form. There are no word definitions or pronunciation guides. Words are listed alphabetically, as they would be in a dictionary, and an exhaustive list of synonyms is given for each definition of every word. Clarifications such as "informal", "slang", "archaic", etc. are provided where appropriate. There are 1.5 million words in "The Synonym Finder", including variations on the same root word. That's more than 4 times the number of words in "Roget's International Thesaurus". If you simply want to find synonyms, this is the book for you. It isn't as versatile as a thesaurus that is organized by subject, but it's more to the point and easier to use if you are simply looking for word alternatives. Roget's is a better research tool, but this is a better and far more efficient synonym finder, and I think that students will prefer it to Roget's. My one pet peeve about the book is that the hardback edition doesn't have a dust jacket. The publisher may have thought a dust jacket would just be a nuisance on a reference book, but I would have preferred one for protection. I only wish "The Synonym Finder" were also available as software, as I have limited space for books within arm's reach of my computer. I use "The Synonym Finder" more frequently than my dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, and Random House Word Menu combined. I think any writer will find it indispensable, and it would make great gift for middle school, high school, and college students.
|
|
|
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All other thesauri are pretenders to this book's throne, August 18, 2004
Until coming across this book, I found thesauri to be more frustrating than trying to chew Captain Crunch cereal without any teeth. Not that I know what that's like, but it's easy enough to imagine.
Then I saw this. And found that all of the thesauri collected in my library had become worthless. This is the OED of thesauri, indispensable and perfect beyond comprehension. You will want to order this in hardcover, for you will find yourself using it again, and again, and again, and again.
When I bought this book I actually did comparisons between the synonyms in this book and others, and was astounded. I don't remember the word offhand, but this book had over twenty synonyms, while Roget's had seven. An Oxford thesaurus had eleven, but that was as good as it got.
The most important thing about this book is that the synonyms are relevant. The author hasn't just packed a bunch of words together here to make it look good.
|
|
|
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best, September 12, 2000
I've had Rodale's Synonym Finder in my reference library for over ten years, and find that I use it at least ten times a month. There is simply no other book in the English language that is more comprehensive (the number of pages is an obvious give away) nor more helpful. As a lover of language, I frequently examine other such books, and always find that they come up short against this exhaustive resource. What makes this particular reference so valuable is that it recognizes each word usually has more than one meaning, and when it gives a synonym, it is by meaning, not simply by word. Moreover, the reference gives various examples when a word is used as an adjective or adverb, and either as a noun or a verb. It's this breadth and depth that makes this particular synonym finder so extraordinarily superior to the competition. My only lament is that it doesn't include antonymns, but then the book would probably be too large and too cumbersome. As it stands now, the words are clearly displayed, and the synonyms - in all their variety - are abundant.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Synonym Finder - J.I. Rodale
Expansive, expanding, enlarging, enhancing, unfolding, unfurling, reinforcing, flourishing, maximizing, expounding on, puffing out, deepening, boundlessness, abyss, stretching...
Read more
Published 1 month ago by S. Price
|
|
by Barbara Ann Kipfer
by Barbara Ann Kipfer
by Christine A. Lindberg
by University of Chicago Press Staff
See all Editorial Reviews
