Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a type of reference publication. A good thesaurus is not just a collection of synonyms and antonyms, but as with Roget’s thesaurus, ‘the user starts with an idea and flips through the book until he finds the word that best expresses it’.
A great Norwegian thesaurus called Ord og begreper – Norsk tesaurus av Johann Hammond Rosbach from 2001 is largely inspired by Roget’s 1852 English original.
The word thesaurus is a Greek word meaning store or treasury, it was also used to denote treasure chests.
Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869)
The original title of Peter Mark Roget’s publication is Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so to Assist in Literary Composition