OpenThesaurus is a multilingual

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionar ...

project built in open collaboration by volunteers. Its data is freely available as open content. It is known for its usage in the applications

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite co ...

KWord KWord is a deprecated word processor and a desktop publishing application, part of the KOffice suite. It has been obsoleted by Calligra Words of the Calligra Suite. History KWord was created by Reginald Stadlbauer as part of the KOffice projec ...

Lyx LyX (styled as ; pronounced ) (Based on 3 developers, they say it can be pronounced "Licks", "Lucks" and "Leeks") is an open source, graphical user interface document processor based on the LaTeX typesetting system. Unlike most word processors, ...

, and Apple Dictionary.

The database takes words that are associated with at least one meaning. Apart from synonyms, it also contains some taxonomic relations. There is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

, a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

, a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

, a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, a Slovak, a

Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...

, a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

version available. The German version has over 280,000 synonyms.

Access and editing

The data is freely available under the terms of the

GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

(LGPL). The database can be searched online without login through a web frontend on the website. Apart from that the data is also available in formats for use with the

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

s of the

office suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital painting ...

and

(

Writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

) or as a complete database dump. With a free account users that are logged in can also add and alter entries. All entries have to be checked at least once before a release is made.

History

The cause for the start of the project was the arrival of OpenOffice.org in 2002, which was missing the thesaurus of its parent,

StarOffice StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary office suite, intended to compete with the marketing-leading Microsoft Office. It served as the basis for open-source suites OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the OpenOffice.org XML f ...

, due to its licensing. OpenThesaurus filled that gap by importing possible synonyms from a freely available German/English dictionary and refining and updating these in

crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

work through the use of a web application. Since version 2.0.3 OpenOffice.org innately ships with OpenThesaurus.Open Thesaurus: Mitbauen am Schatzhaus » blog.frei!
/ref> The project has gained a lot of popularity following the arrival of Apple Dictionary in Mac OS X 10.5, which can integrate OpenThesaurus data through a plugin.

Literature

* * Naber D
OpenThesaurus: Building a Thesaurus with a Web Community.
2004. * {{Citation , author =Daniel Naber , date=March 2005 , title =OpenThesaurus — Ein offenes deutsches Wortnetz , work =Sprachtechnologie, mobile Kommunikation und linguistische Ressourcen: Beiträge zur GLDV-Tagung 2005 in Bonn , publisher =Peter-Lang-Verlag , publication-place =Frankfurt , pages =422–433 , url =http://www.danielnaber.de/publications/gldv-openthesaurus.pdf , accessdate =

External links

project homepage

References

Online dictionaries Thesauri (lexicography)

Contents

Access and editing

History

Literature

External links

References