Roget’s Thesaurus

Stuck for a word? Since 1852 we have been turning to the amazing lexicon (“dictionary, vocabulary, index, glossary, thesaurus…”) that is ‘Roget’s Thesaurus‘, ‘thesaurus’ meaning ‘treasury’ and Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) being the dedicated compiler of that treasury of synonyms, antonyms, phrases and sayings. The original title was ‘Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition’, summing up its aims.

Roget, from London, lost both parents – one died, the other was institutionalised – so was then raised by his uncle. It was during this troubled childhood that Roget began writing lists. He went on to become a successful doctor but also continued making notebooks of groups of words for his own use and by 1805 had a draft of his later masterpiece.

Upon retiring this was his focus and four years of work resulted in the first publication of his Thesaurus. There have been many updated editions, with Roget himself authoring the first 28 before his death, followed by his son and then his grandson taking on the task. The book is organised into different categories and sub-categories. Fortunately, Roget decided to add an alphabetical index just prior to its first appearance.

(Images LtoR: by Ray MacLean at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0, P.M. Roget by Wellcome at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)