Today in History: 10 words you might not have heard before in honour of the first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus
The very first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus was released to the public on 29 April, 1852 and 165 years later we’ve chosen 10 pretty unique words in honour of it.
Roget’s Thesaurus was first drafted and conceptualised by British physician, natural theologist, and lexicographer, Peter Mark Roget in 1805.
Over the course of the next 47 years, Roget would perfect the rough edges of his collection of words and alternatives for those words with alternatives for the alternatives, and so the chain went on.
By the time the first edition was published on 29 April 1852, Roget had collected an astounding 15 000 words.
Every subsequent version has been bigger than the last, with the original manuscript of the first edition currently being stored at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, in the USA.
In the foreword to the first edition, Roget described his Thesaurus as follows:
“It is now nearly fifty years since I first projected a system of verbal classification similar to that on which the present work is founded. Conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my own deficiencies, I had, in the year 1805, completed a classed catalogue of words on a small scale, but on the principle, and nearly in the same form as the Thesaurus now published.”
In honour of the first Roget’s Thesaurus, here are 10 pretty unique words from Roget’s Thesaurus you might never had heard of (and even if you had heard of them, their meanings are pretty unique too).
1. manumission
verb
a) the act of releasing someone from slavery or servitude
2. chit
noun
a) a signed note for money owed for food, drink, etc.
b) any receipt, voucher, or similar document, especially of an informal nature
c) Chiefly British. a note; short memorandum
3. gewgaw
noun
a) something gaudy and useless; trinket; bauble
4. rapacious
adjective
a) given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed
b) inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate
c) (of animals) subsisting by the capture of living prey; predacious
5. entrepôt
noun
a) a warehouse
b) a commercial centre where goods are received for distribution,transshipment, or repackaging
6. woolpack
noun
a) a coarse fabric, usually of jute, in which raw wool is packed for transport
b) the package in which raw wool is done up for transport
c) something resembling such a package, like a fleecy cloud
d) Meteorology. a cumulus cloud of fleecy appearance with a horizontal base
7. sexton
noun
a) an official of a church charged with taking care of the edifice and its contents, ringing the bell, etc., and sometimes with burying the dead
b) an official who maintains a synagogue and its religious articles, chants the designated portion of the Torah on prescribed days, and assists the cantor in conducting services on festivals
8. elegy
noun
a) a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead
b) a poem written in elegiac meter
c) a sad or mournful musical composition
9. tellurian
adjective
a) of or characteristic of the earth or its inhabitants; terrestrial
noun
b) an inhabitant of the earth
10. dithyramb
noun
a) a Greek choral song or chant of vehement or wild character and of usually irregular form, originally in honour of Dionysus or Bacchus
b) any poem or other composition having similar characteristics, as an impassioned or exalted theme or irregular form
c) any wildly enthusiastic speech or writing
*Side note: All definitions given above are correct as per dictionary.com.
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