Talk:thesaurus

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Toddcs in topic Etymology

Various edit

Why should there be a "See also" tag which points to the same term in German language? I wish I know that. Is there a guideline or policy on this? --Biblbroks 23:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Could someone please provide the complete pronounciation or even better a sound-file of this word? I am no native english speaker and neither know how to pronounce the original Greek word, nor how to say it in english. Wictionary has always been a great help with pronounciation for me. Thanks and keep it up :) 87.123.215.26 01:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Definition edit

Currently, a thesaurus is defined as a dictionary of synonyms. But it seems to me that this is not what many thesauri are. What the thesauri that I have seen do is that, with some or all terms, they associate lists of terms. But the items in the lists are not only synonyms of the term in question, and not only even imperfect synonyms; they include hyponyms and other semantically related terms.

Thus, "dictionary of synonyms" seems to me to be a very rough approximation to the meaning of the word "thesaurus".

The thesauri that I have seen are Roget's 1911, Moby Thesaurus II, and The Penguin Thesaurus. --Dan Polansky 19:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Example Statement edit

The example "Wiktionary is a thesaurus and dictionary." is not only confusing but self-referential. Shouldn't it be changed? — This comment was unsigned.

If you think it is confusing, probably. Done. DCDuring TALK 18:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Relationship with -saurus suffix. edit

Since even the greek root, σαύρου, is similar, it would be nice to have an explanation why in this case it means storehouse but as a suffix it means lizard.

Because you're ignoring half of the word- the "θη" isn't just there for show. The "Greek root" is actually "θησαυρ-". Your question is like asking why "tired" isn't related to the color "red". Also, saurus isn't really a suffix, it's the Latin spelling of the Greek word word for lizard, which can be used to form compounds. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Etymology edit

It might be noted in the article that Marcus Jastrow in his Hebrew and Aramaic dictionary states that the Greek word "thēsaurós" is of Semitic origin, related to Aramaic "tisbara" (radix S-B-R). You can see this at http://www.dukhrana.com/lexicon/Jastrow/index.php; enter "tsbr)" as your search string. Page 1682 will come up. See column 2, middle, s.v. תסברא). Toddcs (talk) 04:25, 29 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

   

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