LAHORE: The first online Urdu thesaurus and its free mobile app were launched here on Saturday.

A press release stated that Musharraf Ali Farooqi, editor of the thesaurus, developed over five years and offered this educational service through his publishing house Kitab.

Over 40,000 unique words and phrases, and over 20,000 sets of synonyms can be searched through the website and app.

Farooqi said this number will grow exponentially in the coming months and years, as the resource develops with more data. Bilingual dictionaries and special terminology from the fields of arts, sciences, law, business and other disciplines will be added to the resource, enabling it to handle complex translation projects. Vocabulary building tools for children will also be introduced to promote usage.

Farooqi said the thesaurus is a free educational resource, developed through a private effort and without external funding. The free app allows users to search and share the data through email and social media. Synonyms can be shared and any suggestions for corrections or additions sent directly from the app through email.

The editorial advisory board of the thesaurus comprises renowned Urdu scholars Tehsin Firaqi, Moeen Nizami, Muhammad Salimur Rahman and Mazhar Mahmood Shairani.

Its database and mobile app have been developed under the technical guidance of Dr Awais Athar whose research works revolves around natural language processing and information retrieval.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2016