Thesaurus Initiative

The Thesaurus Initiative is able to help you learn new words. Tired of overusing overused words like "overuse"? By creating word associations and using flashcard learning, this little app can stop you from belaboring (overusing) colloquial (common) terms (words).

The Thesaurus Initiative is an Adobe AIR application and requires the AIR Runtime to operate. Upon installing the program, it will provide warnings indicating possible unrestricted file access and an unknown publisher. This program is only capable of searching text documents located in its own directory, however, and poses no threat.

The Thesaurus Initiative is compatible with any platform that AIR is compatible with.

The program operates by presenting a word and its base meaning. You must then provide every synonym recorded in the file via a comma-separated list of words. Pressing "Hint" will begin showing the letters of every missing word incrementally. Once all the synonyms have been provided, you may proceed to the next word.

You may add your own words to the file by pressing the "Add Word" at the top of the screen. The Thesaurus Initiative furthermore allows for the creation of custom files in the event that you desire categories of words to be tested rather than a whole.

A note from present-day me: I'll be honest. The interface is much worse than it should be. Since the time I wrote this program, I've learned a great deal about interface design thanks to experiences and computer-interaction classes. Regardless, this relic of a program demonstrates a unique and potentially effective way in forcing new words to be remembered.