Using A Thesaurus

[yiran]

Do you ever use any thesauri to check for words or do you only write words that naturally come to your mind?

I use them sometimes but only because my vocabulary is really bad, and sometimes I can't peg the right word for a certain scenario. In that case, I go onto a thesaurus and check for words that might fit my "scenario". If I can't find one I'll just scrap the sentence altogether and rephrase it. However, most of the time I like to use my own mind as a source since it flows more naturally.

 

[Superbird]

Re: Using Thesaurus

It's unfortunate that dictionaries don't have a backwards search where you search for the word with the definition you put in.

I mean, whenever I use a thesaurus I never end up getting any words that fit any better than the original.

 

[surskitty]

I use one if I know the word I'm thinking of but can't pull it up because brain fog. Otherwise, no.

 

[Tailsy]

Same as Viki: I tend to use a thesaurus when I'm thinking of a word but it's just not coming to me so I type in a similar one to see if it's suggested. Otherwise I tend to avoid thesauruses, as they tend to induce extraneous loquaciousness.

 

[Phantom]

Ditto as surskitty and Tailsy.

If I do use one it's because I feel like I've used a word too much. Like in my fanfiction DC, in the first chapter. Powers dammit there are only so many ways to say cart.

 

[Zero Moment]

Powers dammit there are only so many ways to say cart.

I hope you haven't had to go so far as to use 'pully-wheely-holdy-deally' yet!


But yeah what pretty much everyone else said
Unless I feel like beating the mental haze with a club
Which happens and doesn't always work

 

[ultraviolet]

I use them sometimes when I'm writing essays and I realise I've used the same word about eight times in one paragraph. Otherwise, not really.

 

[Negrek]

I haven't touched one in years.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

I use them when I'm revising; if there's a word that I'm trying to think of but I just can't find it, like what other people have said, I won't look it up then because I'll lose track of what I was writing. I just put a similar word in brackets, and then I know that I was looking for a better word. I suppose by then I'll probably have forgotten what word I was originally looking for, but I can always still find the best fit later.