I would imagine there are books that gather groups of similar words. I don’t mean synonyms, but rather where you could get the names or words for 100 types of headgear, or footware etc.
So I could look up “shoes” and get back:
Shoes, boots, booties, pumps, slippers, clogs, etc.
What would you call this type of book, and can anyone suggest an online resource? I need to get lots of different words for things you wear on various body part s(including say, “necklace, ruff, collar, tie” for kneckwear for example) for a “Rename Generator” for my roleplaying game.
Thanks in advance, I am sure there is something like this out there, there seem to be bazillions of types of “word books”.
I know exactly what you’re talking about - not “synonyms” but finding words that belong in a set, they may be tied to each other by an unstated connection - like “Things that you postpone”. (Watch the game show “Pyramid”) .
Google “Labs” has a tool called “Google Sets” which is kind of fun to play with:
Type in several elements in a set, and it returns a list of commonly-associated words. Example: type “paper clips, rubber bands, staples” and get a whole list of things you might buy at OfficeMax!
Exactly! Google sets is what I looked at before, but it doesn’t give me quite the extent I need
However, wanting to be sure that a synonym dictionary wasn’t what I was looking for, I googled for one just now, before I came back in saying “Naw, that ain’t it”, and I learned of a whole load of other -nyms. I knew of some of them, but Hyponymn was a whole new kettle of fish for me
That is a thesaurus…at least the older 60s-70s roget’s worked in this regard. The point of a thesaurus, at least for me, is not a simple synonym finder, but a book which puts groups of similar words together, whether those words be synonyms, near-synonyms or specifics in a category, such as your example.
In addition to the above, check out a visual dictionary at your bookstore. Some are better than others, but they provide a good way to identify the exact object you are seeking, rather than getting a description of an object that may be confusing.
Three that I have (all of which have good and bad points) are:
The Facts on File Visual Dictionary by Jean-Claude Corbeil, Facts on File Publications
Dorling Kindersley Ultimate Visual Dictionary, Dorling Kindersley What’s What A visual glossary of everyday objects–from paper clips to passenger ships, Reginald Bragonier, jr. and David Fisher, Ballantine Books
The technical term for what you are looking for is “semantic field”. If you google that, you´ll find even more (though a thesaurus should be quite enough). This one is a nice illustration of the concept.
You need to look at Roget’s 21st CENTURY Thesaurus. THIS Roget’s Thesaurus has two parts. The thesaurus part and the category part. DEFINATELY check it out. It is EXACTLY what you are wanting.
Roget’s Thesaurus is my most prized writing aid. Highly recommended. I can usually find the word I am looking for within a couple of minutes. And I owe it all to it’s “concepts” or in yourspeak categories. Sorry, I couldn’t find an online version, but it sure is a great thing to have anyway.
Unfortunately, I tried neckware with my 10 year old version and didn’t really find much. The concept it associated collar with was accessory or part, not neckware. But clothing was in a neighboring concept, which did give more choices, but none you would wear around your neck. But I do have an old version of the book. The new one surely has more.
This one is not a book, but a computer program that will do that for you is WordNet.
You can download this program or try the online version. You can type in the word there and then search for its hyponyms, which is the linguistic term for the type of relationship you’re looking for (there are other ones like hypernyms, meronyms, holonyms, etc).
For example, here are the hyponyms for the word “shoe”.
I have used this program extensively for my thesis research project (part of it dealt with calculating the semantic similarity between word pairs).
