Throw out the term “thesaurus words,” and you’ll probably get some side-eye from writers who see the thesaurus as a crutch for amateur writers trying to make their writing sound more sophisticated.
But a thesaurus can help you find the right words for your project — the ones that say what you need to say, just the way you need to say it.
The words every writer should know, after all, are the words they need to tell a compelling story or to get their point across with clarity, simplicity, and elegance.
So, the best thesaurus for writers is the one that helps them find those words as efficiently as possible, so they can get back to the business of writing.
- Best Online Thesaurus for Writers
- The Best Thesaurus for Writers: 9 Excellent Print or Kindle Options
- 1. Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus
- 2. The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression
- 3. Roget’s Thesaurus of Words for Writers
- 4. The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma
- 5. The Well-Spoken Thesaurus: The Most Powerful Ways to Say Everyday Words and Phrases
- 6. Thesaurus of the Senses (by Linda Hart)
- 7. The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes (Writers Helping Writers Series, Book 3)
- 8. The Thinker’s Thesaurus: Sophisticated Alternatives to Common Words
- 9. The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws (Writers Helping Writers Series, Book 2)
The Best Thesaurus for Writers: 9 Excellent Print or Kindle Options
What if you need a more evocative thesaurus for your writing project? By that, I mean a thesaurus that helps you find the words most likely to evoke the right images or feelings in your reader?
Also, it helps to have a printed book you can thumb through whenever you need it, without having to rely on your internet connection.
Online thesauruses are fine for the random, occasional search for synonyms or antonyms.
But when you need a go-to resource to help you find the right words (more than once a day) for your current work in progress, you need something close at hand.
The following tools provide thousands of well-organized words for writers. Don’t be surprised if more than one of them end up in your cart.
Best Online Thesaurus for Writers
If you’re running short on space for printed books — or you’d just rather use online dictionaries and other resources — we’re here to help you find the best writer’s thesaurus online for your purposes.
Here’s a shortlist of the best options we’ve found:
- Thesaurus.com (by Dictionary.com) — the oldest and most trusted online thesaurus
- Merriam-Webster’s Thesaurus — similar to Thesaurus.com but with the results formatted differently.
- The FreeDictionary Thesaurus — creates a diagram for each word entered, indicating synonyms and antonyms by green circles or red squares (respectively).
- Collins Dictionary Thesaurus — similar to the Merriam-Webster thesaurus in the way it displays results.
- PowerThesaurus.com — a crowdsourced English thesaurus that generates synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and examples for each word.
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Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve looked over 9 of the most useful thesauruses for writers, which ones stood out to you the most? Which do you think you’d get the most use out of — either with your writing or with your own personal development?
I hope you found more than one to add to your writing resource library. The right word at the right time is magic. I hope you use the resources listed in this post to bring more of that magic into your life and the lives of your readers.