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y
(French) cru
Y
(German) München
j
(Irish) Dáil
(Russian) Arkhangelsk
>
(French) Horta
y;
(German) gemütlich
nasalized vowels diphthongs
(
~
indicates nasality
)
a
pincette
aI
(German) Gleichschaltung
Q
cordon bleu
A
(French) Danton, Lac Leman
E
(French) Amiens, Rodin
9
(French) Verdun
O
(French) arrondissement
used for anglicized
French pronunciations
}
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~
~
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Oxford Thesaurus of English
Introduction
The
Oxford Thesaurus of English
(
OTE
) has been compiled using new evidence in
new ways, in order to create an original work of reference that will be most useful to
a wide range of users for many different purposes. It is an independent resource in
its own right, but it may also be viewed as a companion volume to the
Oxford
Dictionary of English
, Oxford’s ground-breaking one-volume dictionary which,
based on systematic analysis of hundreds of millions of words of real English,
presents the most accurate picture of the language available.
OTE
draws on the
same data to give sets of words compiled according to their similarity in meaning
and checked for actual usage against the evidence in the Oxford English Corpus.
All thesauruses contain lists of words that are linked by having a similar or related
meaning, but this thesaurus also contains:
■
opposites (e.g. for the different senses of smart:
scruffy
,
unfashionable
,
stupid
,
slow
, and
gentle
).
■
word links (e.g. words related to horse, such as
stallion
,
mare
, and
equine
)
■
studies of synonyms with similar meanings, entitled ‘Choose the Right Word’
(e.g.
brusque
,
abrupt
,
curt
, and
terse
)
■
advice on pairs of confusingly similar words (e.g. “militate or mitigate?”)
■
a broad selection of word lists (e.g. herbs:
angelica
,
anise
,
basil
,
bay leaf
,
bergamot
, etc.)
For more information on these features, see the relevant sections on pages 51–52.
Selection of entries
The primary purpose of
OTE
is to give synonyms for the common everyday words
of English: words with roughly the same meaning as the entry word (headword).
Some words, especially those for animals, plants, and physical objects, do not have
synonyms, so they do not get entries in a thesaurus. You will not find synonyms of
gerbil
or
geranium
, but there is an entry for
squirrel
because of the phrasal verb
squirrel something away
, which has synonyms such as
save
,
put aside
, and
stash
away
.