Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.
Concept clusters in the subject Languages and cultures (Top)
Aboriginal languages Achillean Admiring Greek heritage African History African capitals African cities and towns African languages Afro-diaspora Alumnus American South Ancient Greece Ancient Greek Ancient Greek cities Ancient Greek city-states Ancient Greek city-states (2) Ancient Greek culture Ancient Greek drama dialects Ancient Greek geography Ancient Greek geography (2) Ancient Near Eastern cities Ancient Near Eastern cities (2) Ancient cities Ancient cities and regions Ancient empires Ancient peoples or tribes Antarctic Ocean Arab Arabic Dialects Aramaic language Archipelagos Area studies Athenian Australian Austrian cities/towns Auxiliary language Azerbaijan Aztec Empire Aztec Empire in Mexico Aztec Religion and Mythology Balkan Cities and Towns Balkanization Belgian cities & towns Bodies of water Boer culture British Canadianism Canary Is Cardinal direction Celtic Languages Central Asian culture Central and Eastern Europe Cities Cities (2) Cities and Towns in Croatia Cities and Towns in Finland Cities and Towns in Myanmar Cities and regions in Spain Cities and states Cities and states in Mexico Cities and towns in Africa Cities and towns in Croatia Cities and towns in Croatia (2) Cities and towns in Denmark Cities and towns in Germany Cities and towns in Italy Cities and towns in Nigeria Cities in Africa Cities in Brazil Cities in France Cities in Romania and Hungary Cities in Senegal Cities in Turkey Cities in Turkey (2) Cities in the Netherlands Commonwealth of Nations Constructed languages Counties in Estonia Countries and states Countries and territories Croatian Lika-Senj towns Czech micro-region Czechia & predecessor Departments in France Dialects Dialects (2) Dialects (3) Dialects (4) Dialects of Ancient Greek Dialects of German Dialects of a language Dialects or creole languages Dominican Republic Dravidian Dutch language and culture East and west Endangered languages English dialects/accents English language Epic Meter Eponymous Eskaleut Ethnic groups Ethnic groups (2) Ethnic groups (3) Ethnic groups (4) Ethnic groups (5) Ethnic groups (6) Ethnic groups in Central Asia Ethnic language Ethnic language (2) Ethnic language (3) Ethnic languages Ethnicity in the Philippines FYROM Fennoscandia Filipino Finno-Ugric languages First Nations in North America Fond of English Former Yugoslavia Francophone or French-speaking Frisian languages From [region/city] Geographical locations Geography of Ancient Egypt German cities & towns Germanic language family Gjirokastër Global sign languages Greek city-states in Austria & Italy Greek language history Greek philosophy schools Greek schools Haiti's cities & towns include Hawaiian culture Hellenism Hero from Greek mythology Hibernian culture Himalayas Historical wars Horn of Africa Indian Subcontinent Cultures Indigenous Amerindian languages Indigenous Nations and Tribes Indigenous Peoples Indigenous Peoples of Mexico Indigenous language Indigenous languages Indo-Pak Inuit material culture Ionian city-states Irish Gaelic Irish culture Island biogeography Island names Islands Islands (2) Islands (3) Islands (4) Islands (5) Islands (6) Islands in the Caribbean Islands in the Pacific Ocean Khwarezm Kievan Rus Koreas Landers Language Language (2) Language (3) Language (4) Language (5) Language (6) Language (7) Language (8) Language diversity Language evolution Language evolution (2) Language families Language family Language family (2) Language groups Language name Language name (2) Languages Languages (2) Latin American culture Latin language Latin language and culture Latino or Latina Leader or ruler Linguistics Locals Major rivers in Luxembourg Major rivers in Russia Mediterranean ancients Mesopotamian civilizations Mexican-American culture Micronesia Middle Eastern cities Midlands region of England Mountain ranges Mythology Māori language NA language families Nationality Nationality (2) Nationality (3) Nationality (4) Nationality or ethnicity Native American languages Native American languages (2) Native American languages (3) Native American languages (4) Native American tribes Native of a particular place Native of a particular place (2) Native of a particular place (3) Native of a particular place (4) New Zealander Norman French North African cities North America North Atlantic region North Germanic languages Old languages Oxford Oxfordian Pacific language Pan-Africanism Pan-Slavism Panhellenic Sanctuaries Pashtun Patriotism People from a certain place Persian Philippine languages Phoenician Place names Place names (2) Place of origin Place of origin (2) Place of origin (3) Place of origin (4) Places Places (2) Places (3) Places (4) Places (5) Places (6) Places (7) Places (8) Places in Georgia Places in Vietnam Places to visit in Italy Polish geography Polynesian Islanders Portuguese Portuguese cities and towns Pre-Socratic philosophers Proto-languages Proto-languages (2) Quebecois culture Region or place Regional Italian cuisine Regional cuisine Regional dialects Regional dialects (2) Regional identity Regional identity in England Regional languages Regionalism Regionalism (2) Republic Republic of Armenia River names in France Roman emperors Romance languages Romance languages and dialects Romani people Russian Russian cities and environs Sahara Desert San Scandinavian Schools of thought Scottish Seas and Bodies of Water Seas and Gulfs Singaporean culture Soviet Autonomous Oblasts Soviet Union Spanish place names Spanish regionalism Supercontinent cycle Swiss cities/towns Swiss geography Teams & stadiums Towns in Myanmar Traditional African culture Turkic Languages Turkic languages U.S U.S (2) UK UK cities & towns United States of America Uto-Aztecan languages Vietnam War Waikiki Beach Washington D.C West and East Xenophobia Xenophobia (2) Xenophobia (3) Xenophobia (4)


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 lets you find any kind of word for any kind of writing. Like a traditional thesaurus, you can use it to find synonyms and antonyms, but it's far more flexible. Describe what you're looking for with a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence. Type in your description and hit Enter (or select a word that shows up in the autocomplete preview) to see the related words. You can order, 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 find profanity and other vulgar expressions if you use OneLook frequently. (We take an unflinching look at how words have actually been used; scrubbing out hurtful wordswould 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 implies. 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.)


Watch a video overview of OneLook Thesaurus