The New Oxford Thesaurus of English - Hardcover

Hanks, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198602618 ISBN 13: 9780198602613

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

The New Oxford Thesaurus of English is a completely new and unique top-of-the-range thesaurus. It is the result of intensive research and exploitation of Oxford's unique bank of linguistic databases. It provides comprehensive coverage of English as it is used today, including World English, and rare, unusual, and colloquial senses. The A-Z format, elegant open design with new elements starting on a new line, and the most useful alternative words given first, make this thesaurus particularly accessible. Help on how to use senses correctly is given through practical example phrases and the cross-referencing system takes the user to other useful entries. Opposite and related words and combining forms are clearly marked to distinguish them from the rest of the entry. In-text notes give invaluable advice on the use of awkward and confusable synonyms, and boxed noun lists provide a wealth of information on a wide variety of subjects, from actors and actresses to types of whisky.

About this title

Review:

The trouble with most thesauruses is that a list of synonyms is all very well but if you aren't familiar with the tricky nuances and connotations of, say, "ribald, bawdy, indecent, risqué, rude, racy, broad, earthy, Rabelaisian, spicy suggestive, titillating, improper, indecorous, locker room, vulgar, coarse" (The New Oxford Thesaurus offers a total of 36 formal and informal options at this point), how do you choose the right word for your context? OUP's new larger-than-most Thesaurus tries to get round the problem by providing occasional explanatory articles in panels. Some are devoted to explaining the difference in meaning between close synonyms. Others distinguish between readily confused words--although they are not synonyms--such as complacent and complaisant or venial and venal. Then there are lots of general information panels listing, for example, the regions of Italy, and the names of rhetorical devices (such as trope, hypallage, chiasmus and 32 others). The vegetable list runs from adzuki to zucchini and the authors range from Achebe to Zola. More obscurely, there is a list of boots and shoes from alpagatas to zoris (taking in flip-flops, jackboots and Oxfords along the way). Anyone who likes to play that game when you try to think of an item--say a bird, poet or country--for every letter of the alphabet could have a field day here.

The New Oxford Thesaurus of English is an exceptionally comprehensive reference book, clearly laid out. It is almost an encyclopaedia, as well as a thesaurus which claims to contain over 600,000 alternative and opposite words (few users will bother to count). Like all good reference books it's fun to browse, isn't afraid of the obscure and leads to further questions. What, for example, is an "agnomen", which the Thesaurus lists as a sort of name? It was a fourth name, occasionally assumed by the Romans. So today it means, loosely, an extra name subsequently acquired--but you have to go to the full OED to find that out. --Susan Elkin

From the Publisher:

The New Oxford Thesaurus of English

Seventeen more ways to be blonde in The New Oxford Thesaurus of English
There are five ways to be brunette; ten ways to be a redhead, but SEVENTEEN ways to be blonde in The New Oxford Thesaurus of English.

Yellow, flaxen, silvery, platinum, peroxide, bottle-blonde ... does this over-abundance mean that blondes really are more talked-about? Judy Pearsall, Publishing Manager at Oxford, says ‘It may well be true that blondes are more often written about, but a multiplicity of synonyms does not necessarily mean they are more popular. We often create more words for things we don’t like than for those things we do. For example, there are almost four times as many words for rain as there are for sun’.

In fact, words for the things we don’t like are a big growth area in the English language.There are more ‘derogatory terms’ in this Thesaurus than in any previous thesaurus from Oxford.

Why? As one term of abuse goes out of fashion we create more until there are a host of alternatives. A gentler age might have described the corpulent as ‘well-upholstered’ or ‘amply proportioned’; today’s description is more likely to be ‘lard-assed’ or ‘gross’. A food-lover was once a ‘good trencherman’, now he or she is a ‘gutbucket’ or ‘human dustbin’. A prostitute was once a ‘lady of the night’; but 'sex worker' is a description that is gaining ground.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0198602618
• ISBN 13: 9780198602613
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 1097