thesaurus

A thesaurus is a word treasury.

There are capacity reasons why a dictionary, thesaurus, rhyme dictionary, usage dictionary, and etymology library can’t be fused into a physical artifact. It would be tens of thousands of pages. But why can’t we combine them all together into a digital interface? I’m sure this has been tried…

Here is what AI suggests are the differences between synonyms:

Connotation: Connotation refers to the emotional or cultural associations that a word carries beyond its literal meaning (denotation). For example, "slender," "thin," and "skinny" might be considered synonyms, but each has a different connotation – "slender" is often positive, "thin" is

The standard tool to find webs of language are synonyms & antonym, but these are lossy devices. Consider a word like “uproar:” the antonyms are obvious (“harmony”) and if you look up the definitions of the synonyms (“bedlam, tumult, pandemonium”), they all say “uproar.” It’s circular!

In reality, every synonym should have a distinct meaning: be

David Whyte’s “Consolations” is something like a poetic thesaurus.

lemma (n.) : a family of words that all share the same words (ie: develop = development, developing, developmental, underdeveloped, redevelop, etc.)

What are the irreducible semantic units behind any language? I want to figure that out, draw them in 50 or so diagrams, and put it on a poster.

Apparently Microsoft Word said that “charming” and “chocolate box” are synonyms. This is a thesaurus gone wild. I wonder how much computers promoted the idea of all synonyms being interchangeable.

For the semantheon, roots should be indivisible. A root obviously has multiple synonyms. Synonyms can have multiple roots (and it’s also need to think that the variation between synonyms comes from a relationship with another root.) But you can’t link roots to other roots. For example: “before” and “in front” can be synonyms (“I stood before it” /