Random House Roget's College Thesaurus: Revised Edition

Two of the most overused words in the English language: appropriate and interesting. As in "I don't think that's appropriate, do you?" and "Wow, that's really interesting." How about relevant, well-chosen, proper, or befitting in the first case; amazing, riveting, curious, or striking in the second? It's easier to go with the first word that comes to mind, but if you want your memos, letters, e-mails, and papers to really pack a punch, you need a reliable thesaurus.

Random House Roget's College Thesaurus boasts 12,000 boldfaced entries with 400,000 synonyms and antonyms all organized in a straight A-to-Z list. Each word features an example sentence for the word's various meanings. For example, "dawn" meaning early morning has Did you hear the cock crow at dawn? while "dawn" as in "occur" has It dawned on me that I'd left the oven on. Antonyms are listed, too. The thesaurus also attempts to cover all levels of vocabulary, from formal English to slang. At the beginning, a section titled "Avoiding Insensitive and Offensive Language" offers modern terms for outdated words (mail carrier instead of mailman). Though rather condescending, this section could be a great help to those whose PC radar is on the blink.

With its alphabetical organization, Random House Roget's College Thesaurus is a good tool for high school and college students, or for anyone who needs a better word now and then. This is not only a suitable addition to your home or office library, it's also absorbing to browse. --Dana Van Nest