Those of us of a “certain age” remember always having the paper version of a Merriam-Webster Dictionary and a Roget’s Thesaurus with us always. The dictionary had a blue cover and the thesaurus had a red cover. I still have my tattered copies of both in paperback and hardcover, even though like most people I now look up definitions, synonyms, and antonyms online.
The first known thesaurus, called “On Synonyms,” was written in the 1st century CE by a Greek writer, grammarian, and historian named Philo of Byblos.
In the 4th century CE, an Indian poet and grammarian named Amara Sinha wrote a thesaurus in Sanskrit.
“Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Classified and Arranged So As To Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition”
Yes, that is the original title of the first modern thesaurus published in 1852 by British doctor Peter Mark Roget. Roget’s Thesaurus has never been out of print since its first publication.
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Although he was British, his last name sounds like it is French and is pronounced ro-zhay.
Roget’s primary career was as a physician, but he had many interests and other skills.
During his career, he helped to discover nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, created the London sewage system, invented the slide rule, helped in the development of the cinema industry, and co-founded the University of London.
Roget had a very turbulent childhood. His father died when Roget was four years old, and his mother, sister, and grandmother suffered from various mental illnesses. A young Roget was in the room when his uncle committed suicide.
From the age of eight, Roget developed an obsessive habit of making lists to help him cope with his family troubles. Today we would call this obsession “OCD,” or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
At the age of 26, Roget started developing his “reverse dictionary” with a list of synonyms as a reference to help him with his own writing. This first reference tool for his own use contained over 15,000 entries.
He named his reference book of synonyms a thesaurus, which is loosely Greek for “treasure house.”
The Publication of the First Thesaurus
Roget did not think of publishing his thesaurus until after he retired from his professional activities in the 1840s.
He spent years perfecting the indexing system for his thesaurus to make it more accessible to others.
The first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus was published in Britain in 1852, and it gained popularity in the United States when crossword puzzles came into wide use in the 1920s.
Peter Mark Roget died in 1869 at the age of 90. His son John Lewis Roget revised and expanded the thesaurus, and John’s son, Samuel Romilly Roget continued to expand and promote Roget’s Thesaurus well into the middle of the 20th century.
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