A History of Roget's Thesaurus: Origins, Development, and Design

Werner Hullen

A History of Roget's Thesaurus: Origins, Development, and Design

Roget's Thesaurus was first published in 1852 and has come to be one of the most famous and widely-used reference works in the world. This is the first account of its genesis. Werner Hullen contends that synonymy (words with similar meanings) is a feature of language without which we could not
communicate. He describes the development in the theory and practice of synonymy from Plato to the seventeenth century, when the first English synonym dictionaries began to appear. Roget's Thesaurus, the first synonym dictionary arranged in topical order, represents an enormously significant peak in
this development. This book exposes the conceptual framework behind the Thesaurus and shows how it can be interpreted as a predecessor of linguistic semantics.




  • Please note that all prices are in Australian dollars
  • Some titles may be subject to availability