thesaural

Thesaural is an adjective used primarily in lexicography, linguistics, and information retrieval to describe anything related to a thesaurus or to the structure and content characteristic of a thesaurus. In this sense, thesaural resources encode semantic relationships such as synonyms, antonyms, related terms, and often usage notes or domain-specific terms.

Etymology and scope: The word derives from the noun thesaurus, itself from Latin thesaurus and Greek thesauros meaning “storehouse, treasure.” The suffix -al forms an adjective indicating pertaining to or related to the concept of a thesaurus. While common language tends to use “thesaurus” as a noun, “thesaural” is preferred in scholarly or technical writing to describe properties, datasets, or tools that resemble or implement a thesaurus.

Usage: The term is relatively rare outside formal contexts but is used where precision about lexical resources is important. In computational linguistics and information science, thesaural resources may be described as providing thesaurus-like relations, enabling tasks such as synonym detection, paraphrase generation, or semantic search. A thesaural entry or thesaural network emphasizes organized lexical relations rather than general vocabulary.

Examples: A thesaural database might categorize terms by semantic field and link each item to its synonyms and antonyms. Thesaural reasoning can support lexical diversity in writing tools or assistive NLP systems seeking alternative expressions.

See also: Thesaurus, synonyms, antonyms, lexical resource, semantic network, lexical database.