Moby Thesaurus List

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

3202

Title

Moby Thesaurus List

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

Moby Thesaurus II is a comprehensive English vocabulary resource containing over 30,000 root words and 2.5 million synonyms. Originally designed for DOS systems, this ASCII-based database offers a flat-file format ideal for viewing, editing, and automatic parsing. It serves as a vast, unabridged reference tool for writers, developers, and linguists seeking extensive lexical data without proprietary restrictions.

Summary up to 500 words

Moby Thesaurus II, authored by Grady Ward, stands as a monumental expansion of the original Roget 1911 thesaurus, representing the largest and most comprehensive English thesaurus data source available for commercial use. Released in January 2001, this second edition was thoroughly revised to include over 5,000 new root words, bringing the total count to more than 30,000. Consequently, the database now contains over 2.5 million synonyms and related terms. The resource is distributed as a compressed zip file containing vocabulary files in standard ASCII format, utilizing CRLF delimiters for record separation. To ensure broad compatibility, accents have been stripped from all entries; for instance, the word 'etude' appears without a mark on the initial 'e'. The file structure is deliberately simple and flat, designed for direct viewing, editing, and automatic parsing. Each record begins with the root word, followed by synonyms and related terms listed in alphabetical order. Every entry, including the root, is terminated by a comma, with the final entry in a record ending in a carriage return and linefeed. While this raw, unadorned format prioritizes utility and accessibility, the documentation suggests that reformatting schemes—such as tables of related terms sharing a common index—could significantly reduce storage requirements by an order of magnitude. A supplementary file, roget13a.txt, offers a pre-organized version of the data to assist users in developing their own synonym categories. For applications requiring grammatical context, the text notes that part-of-speech information is not stored within the main thesaurus file. Instead, users can access a separate lexical database (mposp10.zip) from the same author, which provides part-of-speech data for over 200,000 words and phrases. This modular approach allows developers to tailor the dataset by stripping uncommon words or combining it with POS data as needed. Before extraction, users are advised to ensure at least 26 megabytes of free disk space. Ultimately, Moby Thesaurus II offers a robust, raw dataset that serves as a foundational resource for linguistic applications, balancing extensive coverage with a straightforward, editable format.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3202.epub.noimages

Local file path

data/epubs/pg3202.epub

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Downloaded at

2026-08-14 03:32 UTC

Categories

• Words and phrase lists