Common nouns by subject area ?
November 17, 2014 5:11 PM Subscribe
[Asking for a friend] I'd like a list of common nouns associated with a range of subject areas and I'm not sure if some thing already exists .
Does a book/database exist which lists subject areas (eg "Kitchen") and within each subject area lists common nouns often encountered when discussing that subject (eg oven, knife, bowl etc).
In an ideal world this would be a sort of "annotated Dewey Decimal Classification" where each value for which it was reasonable to do so included a set of common nouns associated with the area. Having said that any resource which covered the ground to some degree would be of interest.
Does a book/database exist which lists subject areas (eg "Kitchen") and within each subject area lists common nouns often encountered when discussing that subject (eg oven, knife, bowl etc).
In an ideal world this would be a sort of "annotated Dewey Decimal Classification" where each value for which it was reasonable to do so included a set of common nouns associated with the area. Having said that any resource which covered the ground to some degree would be of interest.
Lists like that do exist. Resources for language teachers are one place to search. If you're really stuck, you could just look at the vocabulary lists in any language teaching/learning book.
Picture dictionaries like the Oxford Picture Dictionary (monolingual English) do this in a useful and fairly extensive/elaborate way (more extensive than a language teaching book).
posted by amtho at 6:03 PM on November 17, 2014
Picture dictionaries like the Oxford Picture Dictionary (monolingual English) do this in a useful and fairly extensive/elaborate way (more extensive than a language teaching book).
posted by amtho at 6:03 PM on November 17, 2014
A Google search for word list by theme may be what you're looking for. I didn't restrict to nouns only, but this extensive resource (the first listed in the search) seems to be noun-heavy.
posted by amtho at 6:08 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 6:08 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
One search term that may help you is "collocations." I think you are looking for something like the Oz Dictionary, an online English collocations dictionary. If you do a search for "kitchen," for example, it will give you a list of related adjectives, a list of nouns, and a list of verbs.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:22 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:22 PM on November 17, 2014
You might check out Descriptionary, by Marc McCutcheon, and the Random House Word Menu, by Stephen Glazier. Both are arranged by subject and include not only nouns, but also verbs, along with short definitions.
A sampling from Word Menu: "Railroads" is divided into "Types of trains, cars, and lines"; "railroad personnel"; and "parts, practices and argot."
Under "Types etc." appear air car, baggage car, baggage train, bar car, booster, boxcar, branch, buda car, cable car, caboose and so forth.
I write headlines for a living and keep a copy at my desk.
Descriptionary is similar but not nearly so comprehensive.
Perhaps you could see a few pages of each at Amazon.
posted by key_of_z at 10:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
A sampling from Word Menu: "Railroads" is divided into "Types of trains, cars, and lines"; "railroad personnel"; and "parts, practices and argot."
Under "Types etc." appear air car, baggage car, baggage train, bar car, booster, boxcar, branch, buda car, cable car, caboose and so forth.
I write headlines for a living and keep a copy at my desk.
Descriptionary is similar but not nearly so comprehensive.
Perhaps you could see a few pages of each at Amazon.
posted by key_of_z at 10:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by moonmilk at 5:16 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]