Description - Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary by Christian Kay
The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is the first historical thesaurus to be compiled for any of the world's languages, and includes almost the entire vocabulary of English from Old English to the present day, as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary and specialist dictionaries of Old English. Conceived and compiled by the English Language Department of the University of Glasgow, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford
English Dictionary is a groundbreaking analysis of the historical inventory of English. The thesaurus organization follows a thematic system of classification, with entries arranged in a semantic
hierarchy according to their meanings rather than listed alphabetically. This means that, for example, all the verbs meaning 'to eat', and other words connected with eating, can be viewed together. The Historical Thesaurus also has a unique historical component, and is linked directly to the senses and the dating of words in the OED. For each individual entry synonyms are presented in chronological order according to the first recorded date of the word's use in English, with earliest
synonyms first. The Historical Thesaurus thereby lists obsolete words, and obsolete meanings of current words as well as offering a comprehensive treatment of current English. The
Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is a unique resource for scholars of all types - linguists and language specialists, historians, literary commentators, etc. - as well as being a fascinating resource for everyone with an interest in the English language and its historical development. It is a perfect complement to the OED itself, allowing the words in the OED to be cross-referenced and viewed in wholly new ways. The text is made up of two main parts: the main text,
comprising numbered sections for semantic categories, and the index, comprising a full A-Z look up of nearly one million lexical items. There is also an introductory essay and a free fold-out chart showing the
top levels of the classification structure.
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