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| Used with permission from DiscoveryEducation |
You need a visual thesaurus. A visual thesaurus shows you all the synonyms to your word, plus, with a click of the mouse allows you to drill deeper into one of the related words, and then see all of the synonyms to THAT word. Somewhere in that exercise, you'll find the perfect word.
The Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is actually a commercial tool, with a limited free interface. Even with it's limitations (you'll have to click "try" when you first start, and you'll be limited to a handful of drill downs) the tool is rich. Enter a word you'd like to explore, and you'll get a pop up application with all the related words, plus definitions of your original word. Click any of the related words, and get a new view. You can print with the free trial, but you won't be able to save your word searches or share them. A membership will cost $19.95/year. Also worth noting is the information included on the main Visual Thesaurus website: a word of the day section, a blog feed written by writers talking about writing, featured word lists, lesson plans and more.
Other visual thesuarus tools to try:
- Visiwords: very similar to The Visual Thesaurus, but not quite as robust: you don't get the drill-down functions, and you'll have to decode the color codes to determine meanings based on word type (nouns have a purple background)
- Lexipedia: again, very similar in visuals, but this one, in my humble opinion, is a bit easier to read than Visiwords. Mouse-over tips help you decipher color coding, and you can show or hide different word forms (keep nouns, hide verbs when applicable).
- The benefit that both Visiwords and Lexipedia have over The Visual Thesaurus is that they are free (open source).
By the way...if you have kids, these are great tools for vocabulary building.
I love all these new topics to share with my son! Lexipedia is perfect for that quick word you need in a hurry...but Visiwords was great for the detail you might need if you are doing creative writing. I didn't so much like Thinkmap.
ReplyDeletethese are all neat sites- I too liked Viswords
ReplyDeleteThis is a great. I try to find three words each mid term reviews to describe my staff members like professional, personal, and prepared. These sites will be a great resource.
ReplyDeleteThanks for including the free versions! These will be fun to play with next time I'm stuck on a word!
ReplyDeleteAs a writer, these sites are a great value. As a cheapskate, I value the free sites much more.
ReplyDeleteThese could prove useful as well as fun. But I won't get rid of the thesaurus on my shelf just yet.
ReplyDeleteVisiwords is my favorite here. Great tips, Lisa!
ReplyDeleteAnother useful tool. I liked Lexipedia. Thinkmap was nice as well, but you can't beat free. I will definatly look into using this.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed playing with both Visiwords and Lexipedia. Like Cal, I keep a thesaurus by my desk, but these are fun electronic alternatives ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think I may 'cotton' to this visual thesaurus thing, though when Lexipedia failed to yield any results for 'ambivalent', I found that 'confusing', 'baffling', 'bewildering', 'puzzling', 'perplexing', 'mystifying', 'incomprehensible', . . . .
ReplyDeleteI love these -- adding to my favorites! Thanks, Lisa.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Teresa... so many interesting sites to share with my kids. Think alot of them could be very useful when they are doing school work or writing projects etc.
ReplyDeleteI get engrossed in the dictionary and thesaurus, so this was fascinating to me. I may use it the next time I'm looking for a word other than "share" to use while writing meeting minutes.
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