January 18 is the birthday of Peter Roget, the creator of Roget’s Thesaurus. The word thesaurus comes from Latin and Greek words for treasure. A thesaurus is not a dictionary since it does not give the meaning of a word, just synonyms or words with a similar meaning. The Historical Thesaurus of the English Dictionary is the largest thesaurus, and has over 900,000 words, about twice the size of Roget's. His original version had about 15000 words, and it was expanded by his son and grandson, and continues to have words added. The Karpeles Manuscript Library has the original manuscript; you can see an excerpt and find out more about the history of Roget's Thesaurus at http://www.rain.org/~karpeles/
One of the earliest thesaurus’ was compiled by Philo of Byblos. The word “philo” derives from the Greek word for love. Byblos was a Phoenician town. It became the Greek word for papyrus because it was exported through Byblos. The word Bible derives from this. Philo derives from the Greek word for love, hence the meaning of bibliophile. Phyllo, as in dough, is not related to philo but comes from the Greek word for leaf.
Other's named Philo: the person who created the first fully functional electronic TV set was named Philo Farnsworth. In the movie “Every Which Way But Loose,” Clint Eastwood 's character is named Philo Beddoe.
