Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford University Press
$395.00 introductory price ($495.00 2/1/2010)

As language learners we understand the value a thesaurus provides to different levels of users from the occasional suggestion of a different word to a better word choice.  As a reference source tracing synonyms and antonyms, we employ a thesaurus along with a dictionary as the foundation to our language.  Oxford creates this thesaurus based on the OED, the world’s largest and most prestigious English dictionary.  In the land of thesauri, one might think this will only be valuable to linguists.  Yes of course it will and will also assist the general user as much as the OED, which stores the corpus of our English language.  Tracing our language development from the beginning to present illuminates the thesaurus’ unique significance by indicating the synonym’s first use with a date and if applicable, the last use also with a date. Almost one million words strong, this new reference title applies to all libraries and should be on all reference shelves.