When you expand your vocabulary, you expand your mind. So start expanding, by thumbing through a thesaurus and jotting down new favorite words to use in your everyday speech and writing.
There’s no better time to start than National Thesaurus Day, which just so happens to be January 18th! The first modern thesaurus, Roget’s Thesaurus, was compiled in 1805 by Peter Mark Roget. Since its publication, it has never been out of print.
The word thesaurus is derived from the Greek word thēsauros, which means “treasure.” A fitting name given that a thesaurus is a treasure chest of words!
According to Roget, the main purpose of his book is to enable users “to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed.”
To help you get started, click on this link to thesaurus.com and start to expand, enlarge, inflate, stretch, dilate, distend, fatten, and tumefy your vocabulary!