Thesaurus Use and Abuse

A thesaurus can be a wonderful resource when you want a more intense, vivid word to use. Sometimes you just have to say "brilliance" instead of "cleverness" or "medley" instead of "mix", and there are instances where a synonym makes the sentence flow ten times better.

Sometimes. Not all the time though. Not all the time. When using a thesaurus, you have to be careful. If you use a word that's too obscure, your reader may get confused, or you might accidentally misuse it. Look at this thesaurus entry below.

Look at all those synonyms for "bright". The problem is not just that not everyone may make the connection between "auroral" and the Northern Lights and then know that it means "bright". There is also the issue that a synonym only has a similar meaning, not an identical meaning. According to the dictionary,

"Glisten, shimmer, sparkle refer to different ways in which light is reflected from surfaces. Glisten refers to a lustrous light, as from something sleek or wet, or it may refer to myriads of tiny gleams reflected from small surfaces: Wet fur glistens. Snow glistens in the sunlight. Shimmer refers to the changing play of light on a (generally moving) surface, as of water or silk: Moonbeams shimmer on water. Silk shimmers in a high light. To sparkle is to give off sparks or small ignited particles, or to send forth small but brilliant gleams, sometimes by reflection: A diamond sparkles with numerous points of light."

Glistening, shimmering, and sparkling are all synonyms, but they have slightly different meanings.

Dictionary.com has many more lists like these, explaining the subtle differences between synonyms. Just look a word up.

These differences also apply to colors, for example, eye colors.

Over the course of a story, a character's eyes might be described as cerulean, then cobalt, then azure, then sapphire, and then simply blue. What is the problem with this?

Cerulean, cobalt, azure, sapphire, and blue are not the same color. They are different shades of blue. If someone's eyes are being described as all those colors, they need to see a doctor.

This is cerulean.

This is cobalt.

This is azure.

This is sapphire.

This is blue.

Also, anyone using the phrase "emerald eyes" should know that this is emerald. It looks nothing like this.

Now, let's look at these two sentences.

1. The colossal structure reared high into the turbid sky.

2. The enormous building reached high into the stormy sky.

The first one uses the most "fancy" words, and in truth, does sound better. It sounds more poetic and less juvenile. Just make sure you know what the words mean.

Now look at this.

I stared toward the scintillating surface of the rill as it tumbled through the veldt into the coppice.

(Rough Translation: I started toward the sparkling surface of the creek as it rushed through the plain into the woods.)

Ugh. If I had read that in a book, I'd have needed a dictionary to figure out what that one sentence meant! I know that "rill" means a small creek, but "veldt"? "Coppice"? No. I have no idea.

You might think that using thesaurus words makes your work seem smarter. It does not. It makes your work seem like it was written by someone trying desperately to seem smart. It doesn't take an IQ of 140 to crack open a thesaurus.