The American Heritage Roget's Thesaurus

This book is a classic, must have for students, writers, or people that are interested in increasing and/or specifying their language choices.

The perfect gift for my budding literary lover! I own the 1997 edition that was gifted to me when I graduated Elementary School.

First of all, something about how I come to write this review, as a serious amateur writer and student of writing, who wishes writing to be his profession, I have owned or used a vast array of dictionaries and thesauri (the proper plural of thesaurus :-)). Currently I believe I own dictionaries from the publishers of every major commonly available dictionary in the United States. I have also always usually purchased whatever companion thesaurus intended to accompany a given dictionary. Actually the writer I find thesauri more critically necessary for me then dictionaries. Almost every single time I look up a dictionary definition, and by myself immediately going to the thesaurus for synonyms, antonyms and uses suggestions etc. While in the middle of a writing project it is disappointingly frustrating to discover how easy it is to become repetitive by unintentionally reusing the same set of adjectives or adverbs. Generally speaking, I have had and have now a very opinion of the American Heritage dictionary. The American Heritage dictionary is particularly good for information on contemporary words and expressions. For a while now I have wondered where the accompanying thesaurus was for this great dictionary. So when I discovered one was available, just about two weeks ago, I was very thrilled, to say the least. I snapped it up immediately. I assumed that I would find it has critically useful and enjoyable as I do it’s big brother dictionary. It turns out I was foolish to assume this. The “American Heritage Roget’s thesaurus” is extremely unworthy of the name American Heritage, and most certainly of the name Roget. The first thing that gave me pause when I opened the package was the thinness of the thesaurus as compared to its big brother, the dictionary. My personal opinion is that a thesaurus should be at least as thick as its companion dictionary. However I think most people, would expect a thesaurus at least half or three quarters as thick. The thinness of the American Heritage Roget’s thesaurus is shocking. However, most importantly, the selection of synonyms and antonyms is paltry, even for those words where thesauri that would be considered lesser, and quite a few. Not to mention the apparently small number of words which are actually included in the thesauri. There doesn’t seem to be any excuse for this. American Heritage should be embarrassed. For those who are looking for a thesaurus for what might be called every day routine use, in high school or college, let’s say. The Merriam-Webster’s collegiate thesaurus, which accompanies it’s commonly known brother dictionary, is much better than this American Heritage entry. For serious writers, who use thesauri on a more routine basis and are looking for a more robust thesaurus, I would recommend, either or both the Oxford American writers thesaurus and the Roget’s international thesaurus, either the 7th or the 6th edition. It should be noted, that the Roget’s international thesaurus is a more traditional thesaurus constructed in the format that Mark Roget originally developed. This means that looking up words is a two-step process. First he checked the index. Then you go to the entry where you will find the appropriate root or head word can be found. I was not accustomed to this traditional thesaurus format until recently. It can be a bit of a pain to learn and deal with, however it can be especially useful when one is interested in exploring by differences or shades in meaning. In terms of the now more common thesauri “in dictionary or A to Z format,” the two best ones the three best ones commonly available are, 1 the Oxford American writers thesaurus, 2 the Oxford thesaurus of English or 3 Roget’s 21st century thesaurus. Alternatively look for any thesaurus that is edited by Barbara Ann Kipfer.

Thesaurus delivered on time and exactly as described.

Great reference book!

great for ESL students

First, please note that the American Heritage Unabridged is a magnificent dictionary; the only American unabridged, and very fine in many ways.This thesaurus is not magnificent, but very few are. One simple point. Roget had a brilliant idea, to order words by meaning, not alphabetically. A real Roget's thesaurus has two parts: an alpha listing of words that merely points you at the logical sections, and the amazing logical section which arranges words by meaning. This provides much greater power, and much more scope for the user to find a word, than a simplistic dictionary of synonyms. The one here is the latter, as are all but one of the American thesauri. That's the Collins Roget. Buy that and no other; you'll be happy that you did. You'll probably even have fun just messing around with it.