Random House Roget's College Thesaurus: Revised Edition

Roget's may be considered the "classic", but the Random House Thesaurus, Revised Ed., is IMHO the best of the bunch. I have Roget's along with two or three other thesauri, but the Random House is the one I normally grab when I want to quickly and accurately add a little variety to my writing.

I compared all the thesauruses in three bookstores and ended up selecting this one. First, it lists words alphabetically (not all thesauruses do). Second, it lists more synonyms than most other thesauruses. With some thesauruses you are given a few synonyms and then referred to a related word to look up and find more synonyms. This related word will then likewise give a short list of synonyms and refer the reader to yet another word. This is an interesting way to explore related words, but it's time consuming. I just perfer a long list of synonyms with each word. Third, the Random House gives one or two easy to understand sentences for each sub-meaning, or sense, of a word, followed by a list of the synonyms related to that sense. Other thesauruses will often give a *definition* of the sub-meaning, but I liked seeing the word usage in a complete sentence. Picking out a dictionary was much more difficult, as each has it's pros and cons, but this was a clear winner, to my thinking, among the thesaureses that I looked at.

This is the best thesaurus for advanced students of the English language. Each lead word is used in a sentence to show its meaning in context. Both synonyms and antonyms are provided. While a regular thesaurus with long lists of synonyms and no explanations helps only people who already have a good command of their language, the Random House Roget's is great for anyone else. It really helps understand the meaning of words.

This is one of the best reference books I bought. It is easy to use and is laid out so I quickly find the perfect word for my needs.

I am an international student. I think this book helps me doing better in writing coz it's got many synonyms and antonyms. Another good thing about the book is that every word has it's own example (telling me where in sentence i should put this word and how i should use it). It's a pretty useful.