One of my favourite features in Mac OS X is Dictionary. And my favourite part of Dictionary is the thesaurus.

Apple uses the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, which comes with a nifty tool called Word Spectrum. Word Spectrum lists synonyms between semantic opposites. The best part – the spectrum is ordered according to each word’s shade of meaning.

Prior to buying my first Mac, if something looked good it was “beautiful”. If something looked bad, it was “ugly”. I rarely communicated the scale of how good or bad it looked. I’ve started to do that much more in the last few years, thanks primarily to the Oxford Writer’s Thesaurus & Mac OS X.

Dictionary’s definitions also often include a context for a word, which helps choose the most appropriate synonym.

Combined with Spotlight, you can get high quality definitions and synonyms in seconds. Next time you’re looking for a better word, punch in CMD + Space, type the word & hit enter. You’ll not be disappointed.