Thesaurus

• Words with clear opposites6,621Entries where WordNet records a direct antonym — the pairs worth learning together.Every entry here has a direct antonym recorded by a lexicographer, not inferred. Antonymy in WordNet is a relation between word forms rather than between concepts, which is why it is rarer and more reliable than synonymy.
• Verbs worth knowing3,878Uncommon verbs with a usage example attached — the single fastest way to stop writing 'do', 'get' and 'make' three times a paragraph.The substitution that improves a sentence most is almost always a verb. Each of these carries a usage example, so you can check the register before you swap it in.
• Adjectives worth knowing10,120Descriptive adjectives beyond the everyday band, each with at least one recorded example of use.Adjectives are where a thesaurus does the most damage, because near-synonyms differ by connotation rather than by meaning. Every entry here has a recorded example showing how it is actually used.

• take
• make
• run
• get
• light
• good
• bad
• big
• small
• happy
• sad
• hard
• easy
• clear
• start
• stop
• give
• work
• close
• open
• strong
• weak
• fast
• slow
• old
• new
• quiet
• loud
• clean
• dirty
• true
• false

Synonyms

Word forms sharing the same synset. Interchangeable in that sense, though not necessarily in register — “ignite” and “light” mean the same thing and do not belong in the same sentence.

Antonyms

A relation between word forms rather than concepts, so it is recorded sparingly and is correspondingly trustworthy. Most senses have none.

Broader

The category the sense belongs to (WordNet calls it a hypernym). What you want when the word you have is too specific: a “sedan” is a “car” is a “vehicle”.

Narrower

The kinds of the thing (hyponyms). What you want when the word you have is too vague and you are reaching for the precise one.

Questions about this thesaurus

Where do these synonyms come from?

From Princeton University's WordNet. WordNet is not a list of words with a list of substitutes next to each — it is a network of synsets, where a synset is a set of word forms that are interchangeable in one particular context. A synonym in AltF Lexicon is a word that shares a synset with the word you looked up, which means it always belongs to a specific sense and never to the word as a whole.

Why are the synonyms split up by meaning?

Because a word with several meanings does not have one set of substitutes. “light” carries 48 recorded senses and 60 distinct synonyms across them, but no single one of those works for more than a few senses — “visible radiation” and “ignite” are both synonyms of “light”, and swapping either into the other's sentence produces nonsense. A flat list hides that; grouping by sense is the only honest way to present it.

What is the difference between a synonym and an antonym here?

A synonym is a shared synset — a semantic relation between concepts. An antonym in WordNet is a relation between specific word forms, deliberately narrower, which is why antonyms are far rarer: 6,621 entries in the corpus carry one at all, against 147,478 entries in total. Where a page shows no antonym, it is because WordNet records none, not because we ran out of room.

Are there synonyms for every word?

No, and the pages say so rather than padding. Many entries are the only member of their synset — a great deal of technical and taxonomic vocabulary has no substitute in English at all. Those pages show the senses and the broader and narrower terms, which are the useful relations when no synonym exists, and are kept out of the search index.

How do I find the opposite of a word?

Look the word up and read the antonym row under the sense you mean. Opposites are sense-specific in exactly the way synonyms are: the opposite of a light load is a heavy one, the opposite of a light room is a dark one, and nothing about the word alone tells you which is wanted.

Synonyms, antonyms and the broader and narrower relations come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Nothing on these pages is generated by a language model. Full sources and licences.