When you're in need of guidance about a word or meaning, do you first turn to a dictionary or a thesaurus? New York Times columnist William Safire considers the relative merits in his latest "On Language" column. Safire doesn't just look at print references: the Visual Thesaurus gets a nice mention too!

Last time in Contest Corner, the challenge was to track down the answers to ten questions in a Visual Thesaurus treasure hunt. Congratulations to Catherine McIntyre of the English Language Institute at Texas A&M University for submitting ten correct answers. Catherine wins a Visual Thesaurus T-shirt! Her answers follow below.  Continue reading...

The 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee kicks off today, an annual celebration of America's passion for competitive spelling. We here at the Visual Thesaurus know just how deep that passion runs: our own Spelling Bee, launched less than a year ago, has already attracted tens of thousands players who have tried their hand at spelling a grand total of more than 2,000,000 words. And all of the data that we've collected thus far is providing new insights into the mysteries of English spelling, pinpointing the words that are the most devilishly challenging — even for the very best spellers.  Continue reading...

We're tremendously excited to present a new feature on the Visual Thesaurus website called VocabGrabber, a tool that intelligently extracts words from any document you're interested in. All you need to do is copy a text and Vocabgrabber will instantly pull out the most useful vocabulary words and show you how those words are used in context. You can sort, filter, and save the lists, and also view Visual Thesaurus wordmaps and definitions. It's a boon for students, teachers, English language learners, or anyone who wants to bring some interactive fun to vocab learning.  Continue reading...

Go on a Visual Thesaurus treasure hunt to track down the answers to these ten questions. If you successfully find all the answers, we will send you some authentic Visual Thesaurus booty! (Hint: you might need to brush up on some of the VT's special features here to help you find your treasure.)  Continue reading...

In the two years since we launched word lists on the Visual Thesaurus, subscribers have taken advantage of the feature to catalogue everything from economics vocabulary to skateboarding verbs. Now it's easier than ever to organize your word lists and keep track of your favorite lists.  Continue reading...