Who is Roget? And what is his Thesaurus?

Roget was Peter Mark Roget (1779 - 1849), a physician, teacher and polymath who was born in London, England. His thesaurus is a treasury of words which he accumulated and organized during an interesting career.

Every writer needs a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. It promotes what Roget called systematic habits of thinking. More than a dictionary, it is a listing in 990 categories of hundreds of thousands of words and their synonyms. They are not listed alphabetically, but rather in categories. The first category, 1. is entitled Existence while the last one, 990. is called Canonicals. In between, you will find 988 categories, with nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs listed for each one.

Roget graduated from medical school at Edinburgh University at the age of 19. He proved to be much more than simply a physician. . He was the physician at Millbank Prison during the dysentery epidemic of 1833. He helped found the Manchester Medical School and the University of London. He also taught at the Manchester Medical School. He was also the Secretary of the Royal Society from 1829 to 1849, and found time to write a column about chess problems for the London Illustrated News. He wrote articles for various publications on electricity, galvanism, natural theology and philosophy, and invented both a slide rule and a calculating machine. It is not surprising that he was a co-founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

While teaching at the Manchester Medical School, he created a prototype of the thesaurus for his own personal use. When he retired from practice in 1840, he devoted his time to the Thesaurus. In his lifetime, 28 editions were published. The edition in 1879 was edited by his son, John Lewis Roget; the 1936 was revised by his grandson, Samuel Romilly Roget.

To use the Thesaurus, first you look up a word in the back section, then you go to the numbered category to find dozens of synonyms for that word. A very useful tool for writers and crossword puzzle aficionados. My copy is the most valuable book in my library!