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How do I use OneLook's thesaurus / reverse dictionary?
OneLook lets you find any kind of word for any kind of writing. Like a traditional thesaurus, you can use it to find synonyms and antonyms, but it's far more flexible. Describe what you're looking for with a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence. Type in your description and hit Enter (or select a word that shows up in the autocomplete preview) to see the related words. You can order, filter, and explore the words that come back in a variety of creative ways.What are some examples?
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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.
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.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 these weird results?
For some kinds of searches only the first result or the first few results are likely to be useful. We highlight the most directly related results in yellow. Beyond that, they're meant to inspire you to consider related concepts. Not all of the results will make sense at first, but we'd rather give you too many options than too few. We urge you to click on a word to check its definition before using it in your Oscars acceptance speech or honors thesis.Other ways to access this service:
- Drag this link to your browser's link bar for a convenient button that goes to the thesaurus: OneLook
- 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 most of the functionality of this site.