Using the thesaurus

About the thesaurus

The thesaurus lets you look up synonyms, related words, and antonyms for words you specify. For example, if you specify “figment,” the InCopy thesaurus provides synonyms such as “fiction” and “fable,” related words such as “concoction” and “fantasy,” and antonyms such as “fact.”

The search for a word doesn’t need to end with the first set of synonyms, related words, and antonyms you find. You can look up any one of the suggested words and display its synonyms, related words, and antonyms. You can quickly go back to any of the last 10 words you looked up.

Thesaurus panel

A. .Lookup B. .Change To C. .Language menu D. . Current Lookup Word E. . Meanings menu F. .Definition G. .Category menu H. .Result list I. .Load Word J. .Lookup Word K. .Change Word 

InCopy provides the following categories for looking up words:

Synonyms

Words having the same or nearly the same meaning as the lookup word.

Antonyms

Words having the opposite or nearly the opposite meaning as the lookup word.

See Also

Words that are conceptually related to the lookup word, although neither a synonyms nor antonyms.

Near Synonyms

Words having a somewhat similar meaning as the lookup word.

Near Antonyms

Words having a meaning that is somewhat akin to the opposite meaning of the lookup word.

Look up words in the thesaurus

You can use the thesaurus to look up synonyms, antonyms, and brief definitions of words.

Look up a word visible in the document window

  1. Choose Window > Thesaurus to open the Thesaurus panel.
  2. Using the Type tool  , select the word you want to look up, and do one of the following:
    • Copy and paste the word into the Lookup text box.

    • Click the Load Word button .

  3. Select the language you want to use.
  4. Click the Lookup Word button  or press Enter.

    A brief definition of the word is displayed in the Definition area of the Thesaurus panel. The Result list displays related words based on the selections you made from the Meanings and Category menus.

    Note:

    You can drag the vertical bar that separates the Definition area and the Result list from side to side to adjust the relative width of the two areas.

  5. Select the part of speech you want to look up from the Meanings menu. For example, if you want the noun meaning for the word, select noun. If you want the verb meaning, select verb. Not all meanings are available for all words.
  6. Select the category (such as Synonyms or Antonyms) you want to look up from the Categories menu. Not all categories are available for all words.
Note:

To replace the word in the Lookup field, Alt‑click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) a word in the Result list, and then click the Lookup Word button. To replace the word in the Change To field, click a word in the Result list.

Look up a word not visible in the document window

  1. Choose Window > Thesaurus to open the Thesaurus panel.
  2. Type the word you want to look up in the Lookup text box, and press Enter.

Look up a word again

  1. Choose Window > Thesaurus to open the Thesaurus panel.
  2. Choose the word from the Lookup pop‑up menu in the Thesaurus panel. This menu lists the last 10 words you looked up.
  3. Click the Lookup Word button  .

Insert a word from the Thesaurus panel

You can use the Thesaurus panel to add or replace words in your document. When replacing a selected word in your document with a word from the Thesaurus panel, you replace only the selected word—not all occurrences of the word. To replace all occurrences, use the Find/Change command.

Note:

If the thesaurus cannot find a matching entry for the string of text in the Lookup text box, all other text boxes in the Thesaurus panel remain empty.

  1. Do one of the following:
    • To add the word, place the insertion point in the document where you want to add the word.

    • To replace a word in the document, select the word.

  2. Select a word from the Result list in the Thesaurus panel.
  3. Click the Change Word button  , or double-click a word in the Result list.

More like this

 Adobe

Get help faster and easier

New user?