Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.
Concept clusters in the subject Positive qualities (Top)
Ability or proficiency Ability to be or be done Able to perceive Absolute certainty or sureness Abstract Thinking Acclimatizing Acknowledging Acuity Adaptability or manageability Adaptation Addition or continuation Adequacy or acceptability Adhesiveness Adulthood and old age Aforementioned Age or being old Agreeableness or friendliness Agreement or compliance Alone or solitary Anachronistic Anniversary jubilee Anomaly Anticipation or preparation Antiquity (2) Antonyms Appearance Appearance (2) Applause or praise Applicability or relevance Appropriateness Appropriateness or suitability Arbitrariness Arguability or contestability Assumption or speculation Assumptions or propositions Asynchronous Automation Automation (2) Autonomy or self-governance (3) Before or in the past Beginning or early stage Behavior or conduct Behavioral traits or attitudes Beingness or essence Beneficial or advantageous Between or intermediate space Beyond the domain's scope Beyond the ordinary or normal Blasphemy Blindness or lack of sight Capability Capability or possibility Catastrophe Categorical denial Causality Cautious Celebrity status Certainty or validation Character traits or behaviors Characteristics Characteristics or qualities Clarity or obviousness Climax Cognition Cognitive biases Coming together or joining Communication (4) Communication and interaction Community or unity Comparing two or more items Comparison or degree Complementarity Completeness or totality Comprehensive Concurrent Contemporary Contentment or satisfaction Continuity Continuity or ongoing duration Contractions of Negation Controversy Corporeality Correctness or appropriateness Coziness and contentment Criticism Current or modern Deafness and blindness Deciding Deep or careful thought Deformability Degree or amount Degree or intensity Deliberate action or decision Deliberateness Deserving of recognition Desire or wanting something Despair or deep sadness Despairing Determination or certainty Determination or decisiveness Difference or differentiation Difference or dissimilarity Different Differentiation Differentiation or distinction Difficulty or challenge Diffusion Digressing Direction of Rotation Direction or Position Direction or location Direction or location (2) Direction or orientation Directness Disability and accessibility Disagreement or denial Disagreement or discord Disagreement or dissent Discrimination Disproving or contradicting Distinctness or uniqueness Divergence or difference Dizzy Doing something in advance Doppelgänger Dreaming Dreaming or daydreaming Dynamic change or variation Earnest Eccentric Effect or outcome Effective communication Elasticity Elasticity (3) Emotion and feelings Empathy or expressing sympathy Emptiness or nothingness Equality Equity and righteousness Essence Essence or inherent quality Eternity or endlessness Exactly Exaggeration or overestimation Exceeding the usual Excellence or high standard Excessive action or process Excessiveness Excessiveness (2) Excessiveness (3) Excitation Expectation Expression Extended or prolonged duration Extracultural Extreme magnitude or intensity Extreme or superior excellence Extreme rarity or infrequency Extrovert and introvert types Facilitation or promotion Fame and celebrity status Far or long Feeling uneasy or worried First or Primary First or earliest Flexibility Flow or fluidity Following or occurring after Following or succeeding Food shelf-life Forecasting Foreknowledge or premeditation Foresight Foresight (2) Foresight or foreknowledge Foresight or prediction Forever or always Forgetfulness Fulfilling one's desires Future and past days Future or past Generalization Genius Gentleness or kindness Geometric uniqueness Going full throttle Good behavior or conduct Good fortune or good luck Goodness or kindness Habit or routine Hand dominance Handiness Happiness or good fortune Having a certain attitude Health and wellness High quality or superiority High status or importance Hopelessness or despondency Humility or modesty Humorous or comedic Hyper or excessive Hyperactivity Hypothesis Identification Illegal or unlawful actions Imbalance or lack of balance Immediacy or being on time Immediacy or near future Immediacy or promptness Importance or priority Improvement Improvisation Inclusivity or universality Incorrect spelling Incremental change Indisputability Individuality or uniqueness Inference Influence or effect Infrequency or rarity Innate qualities Inside or internal Insidious Insufficiency or lack Intelligence Intensity Intensity or severity Intent Interconnectedness Interconnectedness (2) Interconnectedness or cohesion Interdisciplinary time sync Intermittence Introspection Isolation or solitude Juxtaposing Lack of faith or disbelief Lateness or delay Legality Likelihood Limited or impaired vision Location or direction Location or place (2) Loving kindness MBTI types Maintaining a stable Making a mark or impact Malfunctioning Manipulability Material Properties (2) Material properties Mathematical equivalence Maximum or Maximization Measurability Mediocrity or moderate quality Middle or intermediate Misspelled words Moment Moral and character flaws Movement or control Mystery Nearness or proximity Necessity Neither good nor bad Neurodiversity Nevertheless or nonetheless Newness or being new Nobility or chivalry Nominalized adjectives Non-compliance or disobedience Non-intervention Nonconforming Not having enough of something Nothing or zero Obsessive Behavior Off-the-shelf products Old or ancient Old-fashioned or Antiquated Ontology Opacity Operations and transformations Opposition or contradiction Opposition or contradiction (2) Opposition or contradiction (3) Opposition or harm Oscillation Otherness Outdated Outside or external Outsider or outcast Overabundance Overabundance or excessiveness Overdoing Overdoing or Overstepping Overused Past or previous time Paying close attention Peacefulness or calmness Perfection Permeable Permissibility Perspective Philanthropy Philanthropy or altruism Phlegm or Mucus Physical properties Planning (2) Pleasure or enjoyment Possibility or probability Potential action or condition Potentiality or capability Power and strength Predestination Predicting the future Prediction Prediction or anticipation Predisposition Prefabricated Preference or favoritism Preparation in Advance Preparation in Advance (2) Preparation or anticipation Preparation or planning Preparation or planning (2) Preparation or pre-processing Present time or current moment Prior Prior or beforehand Properties or characteristics Public or openness Punctuality Randomness or unpredictability Randomness or unpredictability (2) Reasoning or explanation Recklessness Recursion Redundancy Reduplication in linguistics Regardless or in spite of Rejection Relative comparison Relative location or position Relevance or applicability Reliability Reliability or trustworthiness Reliability or trustworthiness (2) Relics Remembering or recollection Repetition Repetition or recurrence Reputation Resilience or persistence Responsible Duty Retrospective Right or Correctness Right-Handedness Sacrilege Satisfaction or fulfillment Scientific flexibility Selection or choosing Self-centeredness Self-deprecation Self-regulation Self-sufficiency Self-sufficiency (2) Semi or half Semi or half (2) Semi or half (4) Shakespearean language Sharing a boundary or edge Silence or being quiet Similarity Similarity or likeness (3) Similarity or sameness Simplicity or purity Simplification Skill and proficiency Slang or informal language Slang spelling Slowing down or delay Snobbery or elitism Sound judgment or reasoning Specialization Stability or firmness Standard or usual practice Standardization State or condition Straightforwardness (2) Stranger or outsider Strategic decision making Strategic thinking Strategic thinking or planning Strength or sturdiness Studying cognitive psychology Subservience or submission Suddenness Sufficiency or adequacy Susceptible to harm Suspicion or doubt Sustenance or livelihood Synonyms (3) Synonyms (5) Synonyms (8) Thoughtfulness Time or frequency Time or temporal expressions Timing or punctuality Totality Transience or impermanence Transition Travel or distance Truth and authenticity Truthfulness and openness Uncertainty or ambiguity Under or below Underachievement Understanding or perception Uniqueness or exceptionality Unpredictability or randomness Unpredictability or volatility Urgency or immediate need Variation or diversity Variety or diversity Very or extremely Voluntary action or free will Vulnerability Wealth and abundance Well-being Wisdom Working together or in harmony Worship or praise Worship or reverence


This subject index is an experimental OneLook feature. We've grouped words and phrases into thousands of clusters based on a statistical analysis of how they are used in writing. Some of the words and concepts may be vulgar or offensive. The names of the clusters were written automatically and may not precisely describe every word within them.

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?

Task
Example searches
🔆 Find a word by describing it barrel maker
before the flood
museum guide
search for food
urge to travel
what a milliner makes
tried twice for the same crime
when cancer spreads through the body
🔆 Explore synonyms and related concepts fancy
baseball
clouds
twisty
push
industrial revolution
🔆 Get a list of words in some category ("type of...") type of bird of prey
type of soft cheese
type of light bulb
🔆 Find more words similar to some examples (comma-separated list) squishy,spongy,gooey
bicycle,motorcycle,scooter
ice cream,pie,cookies
🔆 Answer basic identification questions capital of Vietnam
longest river in the world
original host of Jeopardy
🔆 Solve crossword puzzle clues, or find words if you only know some of the letters.
(Use pattern:description syntax)
??lon:synthetic fabric
s?nt?:christmas
l*ch*:fruit
??????:hit
c*:board game

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:

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.)



Our daily word games Threepeat and Compound Your Joy are going strong. Bookmark and enjoy!

Try the Bridging Dictionary.