Based on the OED, and 44 Years in the Making, Oxford University Press Releases the First & Only Historical Thesaurus

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Oxford University Press will publish the Historical Thesaurus of the OED (HTOED) this week. The HTOED boasts two claims to fame — it’s the world’s largest thesaurus and it’s the first of its kind in any language. Based on the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the HTOED contains almost every word in the 20 volume dictionary, plus a considerable amount of Old English vocabulary, sourced from A Thesaurus of Old English.

The HTOED is organized in a similar way to a Roget’s-style thesaurus, where the words are grouped together in sections according to their meanings. But its structure, developed specially for HTOED, is far more detailed than those found in other thesauruses, allowing for shades of meaning to be fully documented.

• At just under 4,000 pages, the HTOED is the largest thesaurus in the world. It covers more than 920,000 words and meanings from Old English to the present day.
• The HTOED is the first historic thesaurus ever created. It shows the earliest recorded use of each word, lists synonyms in chronological order (with the earliest synonyms first), and details the change and development of the English language in breathtaking detail.
• The HTOED provides a breadth of knowledge that is found in no other work, and has more synonyms than any other thesaurus. The word immediately, for example, has 264 synonyms, ranging from aedre, which entered the language in Old English, to yesterday, which is first recorded as being used in 1974.
• It uses an entirely new thematic system of classification, with a detailed semantic hierarchy that distinguishes between true synonyms and closely related words.
• Comprehensive index enables complete cross-referencing of nearly one million words and meanings.
• A fold-out color chart for reference is enclosed, which shows the top levels of the classification structure.
  

For those who think that finding the right word is of inestimable value, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is an embarrassment of riches.

Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary

With Additional Material from A Thesaurus of Old English

Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, Irene Wotherspoon

October 22, 2009 / $395.00 / Hardback / ISBN13: 9780199208999

SOURCE Oxford University Press