The words selected as headwords are general words that nonspecialists are likely to want to look up. It is the job of a dictionary, not a thesaurus, to explain the meanings of unusual words, such as supererogatory, so such words do not get an alphabetical entry here. However, supererogatory is given as a synonym at entries for the more familiar words inessential, needless, and unnecessary. A thesaurus can thus lead the user from the familiar to the unfamiliar, improving his or her word power.
Homonyms
Homonyms are words that are written the same but have different and unrelated meanings, such as the bank of a river or lake and a bank that looks after people’s money. Each has its own numbered entry, thus:
bank1 … 
the banks of Lake Michigan
bank2 … 
I paid the money into my bank
Synonyms
It is sometimes argued that no two words have exactly the same meaning. Even words as similar in meaning as close and shut may have slightly different nuances. Closing a shop implies that the shop is no longer open for business, so no one can come in. On the other hand, shutting a shop implies that the shop is being made secure, so that nothing can be taken out. A similar distinction is found between strong and powerful: powerful enemies may threaten from outside, but a strong defence on the inside will deter them from attacking. However, these are unusually subtle distinctions. For most practical purposes, close and shut have the same meaning, as do strong and powerful. Other synonyms are more distant, or emphasize different aspects of the meaning. For example, another close synonym of strong is muscular, but it places much more emphasis on physical strength. By contrast, stalwart and staunch are synonyms that emphasize more abstract aspects of this meaning of strong. Forceful, secure, durable, loud, intense, bright, and alcoholic are other close synonyms of strong, but all in quite different senses. They are not, of course, synonyms of each other.
In this title, the broadest possible definition of the term ‘synonym’ has been adopted, as being the one that will be most useful to users. Even words whose
meaning is quite distantly related to that of the headword are supplied if they can be used to get the same message across in appropriate contexts or if they are synonymous with a part of the meaning of the headword.
The synonyms in each entry are grouped together in synonym sets. Major synonym sets correspond roughly to different senses of a word in a dictionary, but the divisions are also governed by the matches between headwords and synonyms. Each major synonym set is numbered, and many have finer subdivisions, which are separated by semicolons.
At the start of almost every synonym set is a ‘core synonym’: the term which is closest in meaning to the headword in that particular sense. Core synonyms are printed in BOLD. If no one synonym is particularly close, there may be no bold core synonym. Some synonym sets have more than one core synonym; for example at
Synonyms whose usage is restricted in some way, such as regional expressions and informal or very formal words, are placed at the end of each major synonym set and labelled accordingly. See Register below.
Illustrative examples
Almost every synonym set in OTE is illustrated with a carefully chosen example of the word in use in the relevant sense. These are authentic examples of natural usage taken from the Oxford English Corpus (see Linguistic evidence below). The examples can therefore be trusted for guidance on using unfamiliar words in an idiomatic way, but it does not follow that each synonym given can be used in the example, in place of the headword.
Where part of an example is printed in bold type, this indicates that some or all of the synonyms can be substituted for that particular phrase, not just for the headword alone. Thus at attached, the example given is:
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