Roget's International Thesaurus, 8th Edition

I've had some edition of this book for more than fifty years. I regret leaving my latest copy in Phoenix.The index is explained in detail for those who need it. The wispy pages are reminiscent of Bibles of my youth. And face it: you can't beat the price.Great buy. Greater value.

I've been using an alphabetically ordered thesaurus since grade school, so I was a little worried about moving to the thematically organized version, but I was quickly entranced. I find the categories a very useful way of organizing and finding words. If you want to give a certain tone to a paragraph, I can scan the category list for terms like "Peace", "Laxness", "Freedom", or conversely "Confinement", "Strictness", "Failure", and under each is a veritable cornucopia of words with multiple sub-categories. In other words, it is not only useful when you have a word you want to find a synonym for, it is useful for seeing what types of atmospheres you could give to your writing, and for perceiving whole related categories of words you can use. Conceptual synonyms, if you will, not just related words, but related categories of words.I have found myself thoroughly absorbed in the book, bringing it with me to various places and thumbing through the various categories. It is lovely.Old-time users of this thesaurus are complaining vociferously regarding the change to the index. I never used previous editions of this, so I don't know what they are talking about. But it seems very easy to me. Say I want synonyms of "loud". I go to the index and see all the places the word is mentioned. I now bring my forefingers to the contents page with the category list. I can easily see these at the same time. I notice, for example, that "loud" appears in 35.20 and 53.11. I can quickly and easily see that category 35 is "Color" whereas category 53 is "Loudness". If what I am looking for is words about actual sounds, then I know to go to category 53 and skip category 35. I don't see that listing this out in the index is necessary, the information is easily finable.Although old-time users argue that this is a useless book because the index makes it hard to use, I bought it anyway because it is said to have almost 100 thousand terms more than the previous edition. I got it, and I don't think the index is hard to use at all, and I love the enormous variety of words in here. I would take the extra 100K words over the old, uselessly bloated index any day. Ignore the noise, get this magnificent reference volume. If you're like me, with overpowering philological passions, you'll find it is a bit like a teddy bear and a safety blanket rolled into one.

I Like everything about this book, it's loaded with extensive information.

Improved in many ways for the 8th Edition. Glad they brought back the index, which is essential. Book seems to have been resized so that it is easy to handle as a physical object. Love the fonts, as large enough and easy to read. Good use of bolds, so easy to scroll down categories with your eyes. Does not have the tabs of some of the older editions, but I do not miss them, as book handles easily enough to find what I want. Seems to be better quality paper than the 6th edition, which I will donate. Worth upgrading from earlier editions.

I got the new 2022 paperback version that had the sought-after descriptive index. It carried the content and breadth of the Roget-style thesaurus that I expected, updated and with good sized fonts, too. I was happy as I scanned the pages, when I noticed that the edge of the paper was more brownish than the rest of the page, some pages more than others, but all of them had it. The paper that they used seemed to be of the sort bound in paperback novels. This was concerning since the book was just printed in 2022, very recently by book standards. I understand that there is a natural phenomenon known by book makers as foxing, the browning or yellowing of paper due to age and environmental factors. But I think it's too soon for it to manifest. They had to be using cheap, acidic paper. Perhaps the hardcovers fared better. I'll keep on looking for a Roget style thesaurus with better paper.

In recent years I've been writing quite a bit at work and in my avocations; and doing many more crossword puzzles. This book is used extensively. My old version of Roget had taken such a horrible beating that it was time to buy another one. While there are quite a number of fine thesauri and specialized synonym finders available Roget's Thesaurus stands out. It's not the only book I use but is one of the first I grab when I need help. This is one book everyone should have on their bookshelf. There are cheaper decent thesauri but I say bite the bullet and pay the $30 asking price for this book. It's worth the money.

I cannot believe I went more than thirty years of my life without knowing of this book’s existence— it should be mandatory reading for every English major ever.

Now THIS is a thesaurus. Previously I had one that was arranged alphabetically. I got it because it was a "writer's thesaurus." But when writing, sometimes the word you are really looking for is skew to the word you thought you were looking for. This is a far better tool.

Bought 30 years ago. Bought this one. LOVE THEM. This is such a great reference!

If you are looking for Thesaurus that provides words based on category, this is for that purpose only. This will help you find the exact word at the moment you need it. I think this one is more like original Roget's Thesaurus.

im Deutschen haben wir im Handapparat immer noch den Dornseiff

Recommended

Excellent layout, very useful for homing in on appropriate words and phrases. The paper quality was not up to the standard I am used to, and was a disappointment.