Top tools: my best wordfinders

As a professional writer, I spend a lot of time with thesauri. (Yes, that's a legitimate plural.) But even if your job doesn't depend on word choice, wordhunting can be very worthwhile. Do you use Twitter, for instance? Then you can only afford so many words per tweet, and you'll want to make sure they say exactly what you mean.

To make wordhunting a pleasure, you need the kind of convenient go-to references that give you eureka moments. And you might want different ones for different tasks.

For instance, I use different (or more) resources for naming projects than I do for my long-copy jobs. Some of these resources wouldn't actually be called a thesaurus, but they can lead you to what you want to say. All of my favourite wordfinders are online and most of them are free. Read on...
First I'm going to tell you where I don't go: thesaurus.com. It's overstuffed with highly segmented results and ads, and acts more like a value-added dictionary. However, when you're unsure of the meaning of a word and think you may need a different one, this might work well for you. Apparently you get 'faster browsing and no ads!' with premium (paid) registration, but there's no free preview.

My unsung workhorse of a thesaurus is freethesaurus.net. This is the one I use every day for just about everything. It's very bare bones in design and every search returns an unclassified block of synonyms: no categorisation by part of speech or nuance in meaning, just a generous helping of words to sift through. The pop-up dictionary feature can be useful but also annoying, and thankfully you can turn it off. Bonus: a handy browser search plug-in (see 'free tools').

Now the Visual Thesaurus definitely wins the sash for Most Fun Wordthingy. Its dynamic, spokey wordmaps are addictive; if you've never had a go, you really must. Also, it offers audio pronunciation - very helpful for avoiding embarrassment as you practice your new vocabulary in conversation. Plus your search results will return antonyms (words opposite in meaning to your entry) as well as synonyms, and all results are categorised by their part of speech with a brief definition in a right-hand column.

I look forward to the Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day email and wish I had time to mull over all of their insightful articles and crosswords. You can get your favourite wordmaps printed on stamps, t-shirts, mugs...the sheer niftiness is undeniable.

But. But but but. It's a fairly limited thesaurus and I rarely find the exact word I want. So I use this one more to help me think through ideas: the little nodes on the wordmaps will tempt you to click and explore meanings you may not have thought of. (By the way, you have to subscribe to the VT online service after your first few goes, but it's only about £12/yr - a nice digital stocking stuffer for the word nerd in your life.)  

Another source that is not really a thesaurus but has been invaluable to me in naming projects is bustaname.com, the domain name finder. It offers what might be best described as a wordblender: you plonk in all the relevant words you can think of, add as many of the thoughtfully supplied prefixes and suffixes as you want, press the button, and voilà: you get a list of every word combination presently available as a domain name. It produces clunkers and gems in almost equal proportion, but it's never dull.

Those are the wordfinders I rely on most, but I'm always on the lookout for more and better...suggestions very welcome.

PS: When you don't need a word but rather a turn of phrase, try the metaphor databank. It's essentially an alphabetical list of concept examples with intriguing titles like 'Chance is a Possession' and 'Functionality is Presence', each with a short, snappy example of a relevant phrase. If you find it fun and want to know more about the idea behind it, check out this summary of the ATT Meta Project.