Besides OED, the OED online offers an access to the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. The huge volume of this thesaurus is first published in print in 2009 and became available online. It is a unique resource of the English language, utterly irresistible for word lovers, enabling users to narrow down the range of meanings of as many as 800,000 words, in 235,000 entry categories. It is unprecedented as it is not just a plain collection of synonyms but also “historical” records from Old English to the present-day English.
For example, the website offers an immediate access to the list of words related to “drunk.” In fact, a state of being “drunk” has produced the largest number of synonyms throughout the history of English: there are over 150 ways to refer to being “drunk”! Let’s take a brief overview of the synonyms from the beginning up to 15th century. The number in parentheses is the year first recorded, followed by the OED’s definition.
"Fordrunken" (c897) ---Drunk, overcome with drink.
"Drunken" (1050) ---Overcome by liquor; intoxicated; = drunk adj.
"cup-shotten" (c1330) --- cup-shot adj., being the earlier form.
"Drunk" (c1340) --- That has drunk intoxicating liquor to an extent which affects steady self-control; intoxicated, inebriated; overcome by alcoholic liquor.
"Inebriate" (1497) ---Inebriated, drunken; intoxicated (lit. and fig.). Often const. as pa. pple.
"Overseen" (c1500) ---Drunk, intoxicated. Freq. in overseen with drink (also wine,etc.). Obs. (Brit. regional in later use).
… and the number swells from the following century to more than a hundred! The latest entry is "rat-arsed" (drunk, intoxicated; = ratted), which appears in 1984.
From the number of these synonyms, it is easy to understand how much native speakers of English loves drinking! They have been in love wth drinking historically, creating so many different ways in describing their loving state over time.
This monumental achievement will open up a new perspective by which to look at English. The number of words reflects multiple expressions of human culture.
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