Huh. I can't say for sure, because I haven't used it for a while and don't recall specific examples to compare, but the ones I just tried certainly do look awfully sparse.

On the other hand, I just tried "cantankerous" and it comes up with a list more like I remember usually getting.

I've known reference.com to be inferior to my book of Synonyms, but I think you're right that reference.com's pared down even a bit further recently.

I looked up "sad" and the results were pretty narrow. It's like reference.com stopped supporting all a word's cousins and distant relatives and instead lists only immediate family members.

I have reference.com as a tool bar bookmark, which says how often I use it: you aren't imagining anything. Type in Kill, look at the list, and I bet you can double it off the top of your head. Says a lot about English speaking culture, no?

Use Merriam-Webster Kevin. It's better.

I have never had a need for a ... what you were talking about just now.

I just tried putting the results in the Internet archive, and the older results not only had a bunch more entries, but were also different in various other ways, one being no antonyms, another being a different title for the thesaurus.

new page
archived page

Since 1997 I've used www.onelook.com. Give it a try.

Dammit, my last comment isn't showing, let's try with no links.

I put my search results page in the Internet Archive, and got 57 results as opposed to 3. Also the old page included antonyms, and had a different title for the thesaurus cited.

I could be wrong but it looks as if they are using Rogets II a new thesaurus [different filtering results]

http://thesaurus.reference.com/help/faq/roget.html

new
old

So use the IA if you prefer the old site!

Try the Visual Thesaurus. It's pretty cool. The web app is probably too slow. The desktop version costs $40.

While you're at it, the electronic OED costs around $200. Go for the old version. The new one is ruined by DRM.

It you want something really cool check this out:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Great minds....

It's the devaluation of the dollar. The offshore operators who look up your words can't return as many results as they used to. Make a graph of the number of results vs. the price of oil, and it will be clear.

has it now become accepted practice that we can use the contradictory construction "times" (i.e. multiplied by) in order to denote a reduction in something?

I don't have any problems with the speed of the web version of visual thesaurus on my cable modem. Consider this another endorsement of it.

Or you could just buy yourself a paperback thesaurus used off of Amazon for less than a dollar, plus shipping, and keep it next to your computer.

It would probably be easier and give enough words for anything you'd ever look up in it.

A Differnt Matt: It's like reference.com stopped supporting all a word's cousins and distant relatives and instead lists only immediate family members.

Not even immediate family members; heck it doesn't return any results for incest.

godoggo: I just tried putting the results in the Internet archive, and the older results not only had a bunch more entries, but were also different in various other ways...

Interesting. The new results are all from Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company., whereas the old results are all from Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1) Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved..

Answers Corp bought Lexico in July '07. After what appeared to be some reasonable growth in '07, Answers Corp canceled their scheduled IPO in Feb '08. Based their announcement, it looks like they may be moving their focus into other properties. Maybe a casualty of some older agreements not being renewed and Answers Corp just trying to tread water with the old properties.

Wow, you're right.

I use this all the time but haven't used it in a week and yes, it's totally been abridged to uselessness.

Weird.

Much as it pains me to agree with Swan, my paperback thesaurus just whooped reference.com's butt, twice.

"Disapprove"
reference.com 6
paperback 15

"Regurgitate"
reference.com 0
paperback 12

I love the web, but if an online reference can't beat a book that I bought during the Bronze Age, something is wrong.

OTOH, my paperback didn't give me links to Heavy Metal videos on "Regurgitate."

I use M-W.com (allegedly, I'm related to Webster, so I've always preferred it.) or Bartleby.com which is great. I've used both since about 1996. These are the online resources, generally I find that the OSX dictionary/thesaurus is quite good as well. But of course, that's just on a Mac. :)

Jeebus, I knew someone was going to say "buy a mac." ;-)

M-W.com offered me a map of "regurgitate," but no synonyms.
I politely declined.

Is "buy a Mac" the geeky version of someone making a refernce to Hitler and Nazis?

I politely declined.

Was that communicated with a softer, gentler mouse click, or did they offer you the option of "yes, may I please have another", "yes, but only this once", "thank you, but no", "no", "hell no", or "go fish fucktards"?

I prefer old fashioned thesauri. Good for checking synonyms, but also for whacking spiders, palpigradi, arachnids, mites, ricinulei, solifugae, schizomida, uropygi, trombidiformes, sarcoptiformes, and other assorted worms, maggots, larvae, creepies, crawlies, cretins and republicans.

My parents taught me never to whack a spider.

Kevin, what you are noticing are the ramifications of John Wheeler dying earlier this week.

The multiverses are starting to collapse in on us.

Two hypotheses:

A. To save processor cycles, someone modified the database query parameters to reduce the amount of data returned. This might have been necessary to deal with a reduction in server capacity, or as a general cost-cutting measure.

B. Same as A except that the change was unintentional and inadvertent.

If the older behavior returns it suggests B. If not, it suggests A.

I use Word's thesaurus.

Under "McArdle, Megan," it listed "Sullivan, Amy" as an alternative.

Oh, I'm sorry. That was probably hateful.

Crabb's English Synonyms is my favorite, but has far less words than other sources. Crabb explained the differences between synonyms with lengthy explanations.

"Explain, Expound, Interpret, Explain signifies to make plain (see Apparent). Expound from the Latin expono compounded of ex, out, and ponere, to place or set, signifies to set forth in detail. Interpret, in Latin interpres, an agent, a broker, is compounded inter, between, and possibly pretium, price, indicating a go-between in business and financial transactions; then a go-between in other affairs, especially between people speaking different languages."

This goes on for another eight paragraphs, which also includes explanation of the differences between Explanatory, Explicit, Express.

Crabb's English Synonyms is found at the very best used book sales. I have given several as gifts.

I put my money on a Presidential signing order. Bush's speechifications were using too many words. Look at the results: "My measure of success is...success."

Oh my god, you are completely right about this. I was having this same problem earlier today and wasn't even fully conscious of it until I read this.

Apropos to shitty search results, Google has recently become MEGA-SHITTY. If I put things in quotation marks, Google will now generally ignore the quotation marks and give me copious amounts of garbage.

Also, if I type in the name of my city plus macarons as I've just now been doing, most of Google's responses have to do with macaroons.

I can spell fucking "macarons," okay, Google dummies? (Macarons and macaroons are two completely different kinds of cookies.) At least give me pages that RESPOND TO MY INQUIRY, together with, if you insist, a prompt, "Did you really mean MACAROONS???"

Several days ago, I was searching for the name of an interviewee at the Web site for MSNBC and Google conked out after 7-10 pages of responses and refused to give more links, telling me that my question looked like a "virus" or some sort of evil data mining. HUH????

WHY HAS GOOGLE BECOME SO FUCKING SHITTY??? DUMBSHITS!!! DUMBSHITS!!!! DUMBSHITS!!!

has it now become accepted practice that we can use the contradictory construction "times" (i.e. multiplied by) in order to denote a reduction in something?

Things have always been able to be multiplied by fractions. And 1/30 th of something = 1/30 x that something = a 30 x reduction from that same thing.

Try it yourself and see!

This is not some new-fangled blogospheric plot to destabilize civilized culture by extending the bounds of acceptable use. Ask a mathematician.

B. Same as A except that the change was unintentional and inadvertent.

Also undesigned, undevised, unintended, unmeant, unplanned, unwitting, and accidental.

But Kevin, it was one of your posts that convinced me to go out and buy a category-based thesaurus.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_04/003727.php

It's changed my life and improved my dissertation. I've even bought the same one as a gift for friends.

Can't we all just learn to love the book?

I use dictionary.com when I am in a hurry, which has a thesaurus with it. However, as others have noted, for real writing, I like Roget's (categories, not dictionary format). Nothing better.

Wow. That just ruined my day. I've used that site for all my thesaurus needs, but now they've just shot themselves in the foot. If anyone's got suggestions for a better free online thesaurus, let me know.

I think it's a question of copyright, look at the source:

NEW:
Source: Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition
by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary.
Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

OLD:
OLD: Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

I second the rec for http://bartleby.com

And if you're searching for an uncommon word on Google, and it's returning something else that's close (i.e. macaroons vs. macarons), just put a + in front of macarons. Problem solved.

Funny, I use thesaurus.reference.com all the time too for professional work, and I noticed the same thing this week. Suddenly there's a steep decline in synonyms it will return.

Today, looking up the word "funny" returns 6 entries, all from Roget's II Third Edition.

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/funny

Google's cache on a site search for "funny" returns 67 entries mostly from Roget's New Milennium.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:EBlJ_gnD_dsJ:thesaurus.reference.com/browse/funny+site:thesaurus.reference.com+funny&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

I'm betting that kind of seach will still turn up if you sign up for their premium content. It's a damn shame, but cross one more invaluable web reference tool off the list.

From their FAQ Page:

What happened to the old thesaurus that was on Thesaurus.com?

Roget's Classic Thesaurus is being revised for future use. We have no further information at this time. For more information about the new Roget's New Millenniumâ„¢ Thesaurus, please see our announcement.

Said "announcement" is not an announcement, it's just the copyright information of the Thesaurus they use now. It says nothing explaining why the change.

You can contact them to give feedback via their "contact us" link at the bottom of the page. If you're disappointed in this change in their service and are considering switching to a competitor, that's probably something they ought to know.

I still use a paper thesaurus, and one of the real ones with words in the back and numbered categories in the front. I try the thesaurus on dictionary.com once in a while but it just isn't as good.

Don't you all know that there is a recession going on. Synonyms are not cheap folks. Get used to it.

Don't you all know that there is a recession going on. Synonyms are not cheap folks. Get used to it.

Have we reached peak synonym??

Some common words don't even show up in the thesaurus. Try entering "gullible".

Use the (dead-tree) thesaurus published by Crowell. It's the best.

its really a clever marketing technique to do this as students around the world are momentarily writing papers and looking to sound
smart/intelligent/good-brained/accomplishable..

I'm pissed.

I hope none of them buy it...

OK I'm off to use the library's thesaurus!

Wow, that is terrible. I love Roget’s (in dead tree form, or on the old thesaurus.com), but Roget’s II is a piece of junk. I hope they change it back.

I'm a professional writer, a premium member of dictionary.com and WAS devoted to thesaurus.com.

Lexico has destroyed an outstanding site.
They don't even respond to emails.

Proof of thesaurus.com's demise:
I looked up gender about two weeks ago. This is what I got:

No results found for gender.
Did you mean gander?

Thesaurus suggestions:
gander
go under
bender
render
tender
vender
enter
ginger
meander
under
center
dander
hinder
ponder
sunder
vendor
wander
wonder

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