Roget's Thesaurus
11 people recommended it in 1 thread, 2026.
11 of those were in the last year.
What people on Hacker News said
It's a fantastic resource without a great digital equivalent. I've found LLMs helpful in a pinch (and it's certainly better than a standard thesaurus), but Roget's is still the book I turn to for tricky word-picking problems.
A lot of books that call themselves Roget’s have abandoned the dual structure (classification-index) in favor of a single index structure built like a dictionary, basically constructed for people who want a different word than what they would normally use, as mjd writes, rather than people who are interested in the store-house (thesaurus) of the English language.
Like the author, I see a thesaurus less as a synonym dictionary and more as what the word literally means, a storehouse of treasure.
This one does the trick, but like the article author says: it is a weighty book. (I like that.)
Where it comes up
- Seven books I keep close because I love them 2026 · 11 recommendations