In LibraryScience, a Thesaurus is something which describes three sorts of relationships between terms in a ControlledVocabulary:
- Equivalence relationships (synonyms; example: "dry" and "arid")
- Hierarchial relationships (broader and narrower terms; example: "dog" and "animal")
- Associative relationships (other type of relationships; example: "jeans" and "denim"); these are the things which would be listed as "related terms" in a library card catalog.
Something which only describes equivalence and hierarchial relationships is called a Taxonomy, not a thesaurus.
More details about the three sorts of relationships found in a thesaurus can be found here. An example of a thesaurus can be found here.
Links
Other intros to thesauri
Guidelines for making thesauri
Lists of thesauri
Misc links
CategoryInformationManagement