Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget
Chapter 1
1181 words | Chapter 1
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Title: Roget's Thesaurus
Author: Peter Mark Roget
Release date: December 1, 1991 [eBook #22]
Most recently updated: July 16, 2025
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22
Credits: MICRA, Inc.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROGET'S THESAURUS ***
[Illustration]
Roget’s Thesaurus
of
English words and phrases classified and arranged so as to facilitate
the expression of ideas and assist in literary composition
by Peter Mark Roget
An electronic thesaurus derived from the version of Roget's Thesaurus
published in 1911.
MICRA, Inc. makes no representation that the original 1911 printed work
on which this is based is now in the public domain in any particular
country. However, MICRA, Inc. makes no proprietary claims regarding
this electronic version of the 1911 thesaurus. If the 1911 work is
currently public domain, this electronic version can also be treated as
public domain.
Note that this version of Thesaurus-1911 has been supplemented with
over 1,000 words not present in the original 1911 edition, but many
modern words are still missing. About 1500 verbs (out of 6500) which
can be found in an 80,000-word spell-checker are absent from this work.
The deficiency of nouns is probably much worse, especially on technical
topics. Of 40,000 unique words contained in the original text, 12,000
are not recognized by a spell-checker. Most of these are foreign words
(primarily Latin), and many are obsolete. In this version, these words
are marked as such by comments in square brackets. Although this
version has been proof-read, there are doubtless numerous residual
transcription errors, some of which may be obvious even without
reference to the original text. We will be grateful if any of these are
brought to our attention; the corrections will appear in subsequent
versions.
The original arrangement has also been modified slightly in several
places, in particular by splitting one entry into two. A version of the
1911 thesaurus which is almost identical to the original (only a small
number of additions to the original work) has also been prepared by
MICRA, Inc., and also carries no restrictions from MICRA. Copies of
that version or this one may be purchased for $40.00 from MICRA, Inc.,
or from the Austin Code Works, Austin Texas.
Occasional references to numbers starting with "@" are the embryonic
beginnings of a reorganized version, mentioned below. A few comments
are also included within curly brackets {}.
The following additional differences will be noted between this version
and the original edition of the printed 1911 thesaurus:
(1) the space-saving abbreviations in the original, using hyphens to
represent common words, prefixes or suffixes, have been expanded into
the full words or phrases.
(2) the side-by-side format for words and their opposites has been
abandoned. Words are listed in order of their entry number.
(3) each main entry (1035 entries) has a pound sign "#" in front of the
number to facilitate computerized search.
(4) where italics occurred in the original, italics are used in the
Microsoft Word format file. In the plain ASCII file, this formatting is
lost.
(5) in the original book, words which were obsolete (in 1911) were
marked with a dagger. In this version, those words are marked with a
vertical bar ("|").
Some of the words which were still current in 1911, but are no longer
found in a current college-size dictionary (presently obsolete words),
or which are no longer used in the specific indicated sense, have been
marked with a bar followed by an exclamation point "|!". However, this
marking process has just commenced, and only a small portion of the
words which are now obsolete have been thus marked. Most though not all
of the foreign-language phrases are now obsolete. The "obsolete"
notation [obs3] indicates that the previous word (or some word in the
previous phrase) is not recognized by the word processor's spelling
checker, and also is either NOT in a modern college-sized dictionary,
or is noted there as being "ARCHAIC".
(7) This file contains only the main body of the thesaurus. Neither
outline nor index are contained here. The outline with an overview of
the organization of the concepts is contained in a separate file,
"outline.doc", on the distribution disk.
This first edition of this supplemented 1911 thesaurus (June 1991) is
very much less complete than the latest editions of commercial
thesauri, and is probably not suitable for use as an adjunct to
word-processing programs, but it has no proprietary claims attached to
it by MICRA, Inc., and does not contain any material published
commercially after 1911.
Future (copyrighted) versions of this thesaurus are planned, which will
be reorganized in a hierarchical fashion to maximize the ability to
take advantage of inheritance of semantic characteristics from higher
categories. The objective is to create a database of words organized by
semantic categories, suitable for use in natural-language understanding
programs. This is a very small-scale project, which will not be
competitive with large academic or commercial efforts such as the CYC
project, but is intended to provide a convenient resource for
experimentation in natural-language processing for individuals or small
groups. Anyone who is currently engaged in or contemplating a similar
thesaurus or dictionary project, who would be willing to collaborate on
this project, is encouraged to contact us, so that unnecessary
duplication of effort can be avoided. We would also appreciate being
notified of typos, errors, or omissions in any version. Send inquiries
or comments to:
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA Inc.
735 Belvidere Ave.
Plainfield, NJ 07062-2054
voice: (908) 668-5252
fax: (908) 668-5904
(If no one answers, please leave a message.)
[Illustration: P.M. Roget]
Tabular Synopsis of Categories
CLASS I. EXISTENCE
I. EXISTENCE
II. RELATION
III. QUANTITY
IV. ORDER
V. NUMBER
VI. TIME
VII. CHANGE
VIII. CAUSATION
CLASS II. SPACE
I. SPACE IN GENERAL
II. DIMENSIONS
III. FORM
IV. MOTION
CLASS III. MATTER
I. MATTER IN GENERAL
II. INORGANIC MATTER
III. ORGANIC MATTER
CLASS IV. INTELLECT
(Division (I). FORMATION OF IDEAS
I. OPERATIONS OF INTELECT IN GENERAL
II. PRECURSORY CONDITIONS AND OPERATIONS
III. MATERIALS FOR REASONING
IV. REASONING PROCESSES
V. RESULTS OF REASONING
VI. EXTENSION OF THOUGHT
VII. CREATIVE THOUGHT
(Division (II). COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS
I. NATURE OF IDEAS COMMUNICATED
II. MODES OF COMMUNICATION
III. MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
CLASS V. VOLITION
(Division (I). INDIVIDUAL VOLITION
I. VOLITION IN GENERAL
II. PROSPECTIVE VOLITION
III. ACTION
IV. ANTOGONISM
V. RESULTS OF ACTION
(Division (II). INTERSOCIAL VOLITION
I. GENERAL
II. SPECIAL
III. CONDITIONAL
IV. POSSESSIVE RELATIONS
CLASS VI. AFFECTIONS
I. AFFECTIONS GENERALLY
II. PERSONAL
III. SYMPATHETIC
IV. MORAL
V. RELIGIOUS
ROGET’S THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES
CLASS I
WORDS EXPRESSING ABSTRACT RELATIONS
SECTION I. EXISTENCE
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