Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.
Concept clusters in the subject Tasks (Top)
Abdicating Accepting something Accessory to a crime Accounting Accounting (2) Accounting for something Accumulating or amassing Accusing someone of a crime Achieving equilibrium Acknowledging Acknowledging something Acting Addressing Adjustment Admitting Affirming Alive Allowed to do something Allowing use Almsgiving Answering Apostasy Applying Appoint Arrested and detained Asserting something Assigning a value to something Assigning something to someone Assuming without proof Attaching to Augmentation Auxiliary Bailment Balancing out a debt or a cost Bank Banking Bankruptcy Bargain trading Bargaining Begging Being redeemed Bidding in an auction Bonds Borrowing and lending money Bounced check Brainstorming Breaking an oath or promise Bringing a criminal charge Buying and selling Buying and selling goods Buying and selling goods (2) Buying and selling stocks Buying and selling stocks (2) Care Charging for services rendered Checking something Citing sources Collaborating Combining elements Committing Communal ownership of land Communicating Competing with someone else Competitive advantage Conditional Confessing sins Confirmation or endorsement Confirming something is true Conquest Consenting Contract Contract law Contractual Conversation Conveying information Conveying property Corporate takeover Countering something Counting Counting in music Court ruling Creating something Criminal offenses Criminal sanctions Criminal sentencing Crowdsourcing Currency Debating or arguing Debt Delivering a sermon Denying rights Denying something Devising or inventing Disbursing money Disbursing money or resources Distributing Dividing something into parts Divulgence Document authentication Doing something again Doling out Double-entry bookkeeping Economic systems Emancipation Emancipation (2) Enabling it Encouragement Ensuring something Equilibrium Estate planning Exchange Excommunication Exile Exoneration Explanatory Exploration Expressing appreciation Feudal bond Fighting Finality or conclusion Finance Fitting Foundation Franchising Gift-giving Giving Giving or receiving honor Gossiping or tattling Guaranteeing a transaction Having a verbal argument Hazard Heirship Held against one's will Hire Hiring someone for a job Honorifics & titles Imposing Imprisonment In situ Income Initiating change Injection Inquiry Inspection Insurance Insurance (2) Interacting entities Interaction among parties Interfering Interpreting/analyzing Inventing Investing in a fund Investing in stocks Job or career situation Judging or making a decision Justifying Land inheritance Leasing or renting property Leave Licensing Making a choice Making a claim or assertion Making a point Making something secure Manipulating or influencing Margin as a boundary or edge Merit Migration Military service Modifying More prevalent than Motivation Moving backward or regressing Negotiable instruments Non-interference Nurturing Obligation Operations research Options strategies Ordering Our Outcome Owing money to someone else Ownership or possession Owning and transferring land Owning something Patent law Paying for services Paying for something Payment for services rendered Payroll Pensions Persuasion Pleading Pleading in a court of law Plotting or conspiring Polite salutations Possession Preceding something Preeminence Prejudiced Price theory Pricing Prioritization Privilege Profitability Prohibitionary Project management Pronouncing Providing an example Providing something Providing support or aid Publicizing Punishment Re-doing something Reaching an agreement Reading Ready to go Real estate title Receiving something for free Reciprocity Reckoning Recommending Reflecting on something Regaining Reinstating Reiteration Remainderman Remnant Rendering Renting or leasing property Renunciation Repayment Repeating Representation Residence Resisting authority Respect Responsible Restitution Retrograde motion Reusing something Reversal Reversal or inversion Rice porridge Sale Sale (2) Satisfying Segmentation Selling goods or services Shaping Signing documents Speaking or conversing Spelling Spelling out something Spending money Stock or inventory Subletting Substituting Summing Supplying something Supporting a claim Surviving Swapping Swearing or making a promise Taking out a loan Tax collector Taxation Taxation in medieval Europe Taxation in the Middle Ages Testacy Testifying in a court of law Testing its suitability Third-party intervention Torts Trading Transcendent peace Trusting Trustworthiness Validating something Verbal communication Verifying Warning/advising Weregild Witty or clever remark


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