See or try one these examples:
How do I use OneLook's thesaurus / reverse dictionary?
OneLook helps you find words for any type of writing. Similar to a traditional thesaurus, it find synonyms and antonyms, but it offers much greater depth and flexibility. Simply enter a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence to describe what you need. Press Enter or choose from the autocomplete suggestions to explore related words. You can sort, filter, and explore the words that come back in a variety of creative ways. Here's a video which goes over some of the basics.What are some examples?
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Exploring the results
Click on any result to see definitions and usage examples tailored to your search, as well as links to follow-up searches and additional usage information when available. OneLook knows about more than 2 million different words and expressions covering every topic under the sun. Try exploring a favorite topic for a while and you'll be surprised how much new stuff there is to learn!Ordering the results
Your results will initially appear with the most closely related word shown first, the second-most closely shown second, and so on. You can re-order the results in a variety of different ways, including alphabetically, by length, by popularity, by modernness, by formality, and by other aspects of style. Click the box that says "Closest meaning first..." to see them all. (Here's a short video about sorting and filtering with OneLook Thesaurus.)Filtering the results
You can refine your search by clicking on the "Advanced filters" button on the results page. This lets you narrow down your results to match a certain starting letter, number of letters, number of syllables, related concept, meter, vowel sound, or number of syllables. Read more details on filters if you're interested in how they work.I'm only looking for synonyms! What's with all of these weird results?
For some kinds of searches only the first result or the first few results are truly synonyms or good substitutions for your search word. We highlight these results in yellow. Beyond that, the results are meant to inspire you to consider similar words and adjacent concepts. Not all of the results will make sense at first, but they're all connected with your search in some way. We'd rather give you too many options than too few. If you're unsure of a word, we urge you to click on it to check its definitions and usage examples before using it in your Oscars acceptance speech or honors thesis.What are letter patterns?
If you know some letters in the word you're looking for, you can enter a pattern instead of, or in addition to, a description. Here are how patterns work:- The asterisk (*) matches any number of letters. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for any part of a word or phrase. For example, if you enter blueb* you'll get all the terms that start with "blueb"; if you enter *bird you'll get all the terms that end with "bird"; if you enter *lueb* you'll get all the terms that contain the sequence "lueb", and so forth. An asterisk can match zero letters, too.
The question mark (?) matches exactly one letter. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for a single letter or symbol. The query l?b?n?n, for example, will find the word "Lebanon".
The number-sign (#) matches any English consonant. For example, the query tra#t finds the word "tract" but not "trait".
The at-sign (@) matches any English vowel (including "y"). For example, the query abo@t finds the word "about" but not "abort".
NEW! The comma (,) lets you combine multiple patterns into one. For example, the query ?????,*y* finds 5-letter words that contain a "y" somewhere, such as "happy" and "rhyme".
NEW! Use double-slashes (//) before a group of letters to unscramble them (that is, find anagrams.) For example, the query //soulbeat will find "absolute" and "bales out", and re//teeprsn will find "represent" and "repenters". You can use another double-slash to end the group and put letters you're sure of to the right of it. For example, the query //blabrcs//e will find "scrabble". Question marks can signify unknown letters as usual; for example, //we??? returns 5-letter words that contain a W and an E, such as "water" and "awake".
NEW! A minus sign (-) followed by some letters at the end of a pattern means "exclude these letters". For example, the query sp???-ei finds 5-letter words that start with "sp" but do not contain an "e"or an "i", such as "spoon" and "spray".
NEW! A plus sign (+) followed by some letters at the end of a pattern means "restrict to these letters". For example, the query *+ban finds "banana".
- On OneLook's main search or directly on OneLook Thesaurus, you can combine patterns and thesaurus lookups by putting a colon (:) after a pattern and then typing a description of the word, as in ??lon:synthetic fabric and the other examples above.
Other ways to access this service:
- Drag this link to your browser's bookmarks bar for a convenient button that goes to the thesaurus: OneLook
- Enter onelook.com/word into your browser's address bar to go directly to the OneLook Thesaurus entry for word.
- We offer a OneLook Thesaurus iPhone/iPad app for a low subscription fee, with a two-week free trial. This gives you OneLook at your fingertips, and several cool app-only features, while helping us maintain the service for all!
- If you use Google Docs, the thesaurus is integrated into the free OneLook Thesaurus Google Docs Add-On as the "Synonyms" button. (Wildcard patterns are not yet suppoerted by this add-on.)
- If you regularly use the main OneLook site, you can put colon (:) into any OneLook search box, followed by a description, to go directly to the thesaurus.
- If you're a developer, the Datamuse API gives you access to the core features of this site.
Is this available in any language other than English?
The same interface is now available in Spanish at OneLook Tesauro as a beta version. More languages are coming!How does it work?
We use a souped-up version of our own Datamuse API, which in turn uses several lingustic resources described in the "Data sources" section on that page. The definitions come from Wiktionary, Wikipedia, and WordNet. Here are some known problems with the current system.Much gratitude to Gultchin et al for the algorithm behind the "Most funny-sounding" sort order.
Profanity and problematic word associations
If you're using this site with children, be forewarned you'll occasionally find profanity and other vulgar expressions. (The site aims to show you how words have been used in the language, including good ones and bad ones. Removing hurtful words would be a disservice to everyone!)Some of the thesaurus results come from a statistical analysis of the words in a large collection of books written in the past two centuries. A handful of times we've found that this analysis can lead us to suggest word associations that reflect racist or harmful stereotypes present in this source material. If you see one of these, please know that we do not endorse what the word association might imply. In egregious cases we will remove it from the site if you report it to us via the feedback link below.
Privacy
No personally identifying information is ever collected on this site or by any add-ons or apps associated with OneLook. OneLook Thesaurus sends your search query securely to the Datamuse API, which keeps a log file of the queries made to the service in the last 24 hours. The log file is deleted after 24 hours and we do not retain any long-term information about your IP address or invididual queries.Who's behind this site and where can I send my comments and complaints feedback?
OneLook is a service of Datamuse.
You can send us feedback here.The sunburst logo (🔆) is the emoji symbol for "high brightness", which we aspire to create with OneLook. (The graphic came from the open-source Twemoji project.)