Contest

Six Degrees of the Visual Thesaurus

A few weeks ago subscriber Marije Martijn sent us a VT learning activity for students (see "Vox Populi," left column) that reminded us of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the trivia game where you link an actor through their film roles to Kevin Bacon. We here at the Visual Thesaurus love that game, and it inspired us to come up with our own twist:

In today's contest, we challenge you to use the Visual Thesaurus to link two words together through their related words. We'll choose five entries with the fewest "degrees of separation." Winners will receive a limited edition Visual Thesaurus t-shirt. In case of ties, we'll pick winners randomly.

The words pairs are:

fire and sale
news and print
smart and card

How do you play? Put on your cleverness cap, look up the first word in the Visual Thesaurus -- and start clicking to the right related words!

For example, to link "be" to "do:"

be and do
be
follow
do

Simple? Not so fast... Try connecting "be" to "strong." This one takes ingenuity. Here's what we came up with:

Premium Content

The full article is only available to Visual Thesaurus subscribers.

Already a subscriber? Click here to sign in.

Not a Subscriber Yet?

Try it RISK FREE! When you subscribe you get:

Full access to the Visual Thesaurus, including:

  • Easy-to-use interactive thesaurus and dictionary to explore words and language
  • Over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings to find the right word and discover related meanings
  • 39,000 proper nouns, including historical figures, phrases and trademarks
  • Intuitive word maps - free associate, brainstorm and use words precisely
  • Definitions and example sentences to master word usage
  • Meanings color-coded to indicate parts of speech and improve your grammar
  • Five additional languages: Spanish, German, Italian, French and Dutch (beta)
  • Two and three-dimensional views - rotate word maps to reveal complex relationships
  • Audio pronunciation in American and British accents
  • Printing and emailing word maps

And exclusive access to our online magazine dedicated to language and the creative process:

  • Access to great articles like this one.
  • Features and interviews with writers, ad and marketing creatives, lexicographers, teachers and more.
  • Join a community passionate about words, language and creativity.

14 day risk-free trial!

We think you'll love the Visual Thesaurus, but if you don't, we make it really easy to cancel your subscription. Just click on "My Account", log in with your username and password, and click "Cancel My Subscription". If you are still within the 14 day trial period, we'll give you the option to receive a full refund -- no questions asked.