Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus - Hardcover

"The best new array of synonyms around." --William Safire, The New York Times Magazine "The only problem in consulting this book could be that the original purpose soon is lost while the reader becomes immersed in one fascinating passage after another." --Richmond Times Dispatch "Practice writing sharper essays with just the right words from the new Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus."-Parade "A person looking up a word may continue reading for another 15 minutes or so just out of interestThis is probably the best thesaurus yet."--Desert News "Written by writers for writers, this innovative thesaurus truly advances the time-honored word source."--American Libraries "A title that breathes fresh life into a genre very much in need of CPR. This work breaks away from the traditional format of simple lists of synonyms and antonyms by offering a number of ingenious and helpful features set within boxes in the text.... Highly recommended."--Library Journal (Starred Review) "In the jargon of sportscasters The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is a triple threat: It's a freshly conceived guide to finding just the right word, it's published by the greatest name in English reference books, and it offers thoughtful, amusing and provocative mini-essays on 240 favorite words by nine distinguished contemporary writers." --Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize winning critic and longtime journalist for The Washington Post "This very readable reference will help writers find the most precise word for their needs.... Current, thoughtful, and attractively formatted, this is an indispensable tool for writers." --School Library Journal (Starred Review) "Perhaps the thesaurus's most fascinating feature is lengthy lists of words that link opposites--fat and thin, comic and tragic, interesting and boring. With this book close at hand, no one will call you the thesaurus's ultimate synonym for writer: a hack." --Village Voice

Much more than a word list, the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is a browsable source of inspiration as well as an authoritative guide to selecting and using vocabulary. This essential guide for writers provides real-life example sentences and a careful selection of the most relevant synonyms, as well as new usage notes, hints for choosing between similar words, a Word Finder section organized by subject, and a comprehensive language guide. The text is also peppered with thought-provoking reflections on favorite (and not-so-favorite) words by noted contemporary writers, including Joshua Ferris, Francine Prose, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, and Simon Winchester, many newly commissioned for this edition. The third edition revises and updates this innovative reference, adding hundreds of new words, senses, and phrases to its more than 300,000 synonyms and 10,000 antonyms. New features in this edition include over 200 literary and humorous quotations highlighting notable usages of words, and a revised graphical word toolkit feature showing common word combinations based on evidence in the Oxford Corpus. There is also a new introduction by noted language commentator Ben Zimmer.