The purpose of the Historical Thesaurus of English is to enable scholars to examine the nature and development of the English vocabulary at all periods of its history from the first written records to the present. The material is classified in semantic categories, such as War, Food , or Emotion , and within these categories each word has its place in a hierarchy of meaning. The hierarchy descends in numbered stages from the very general to the minute, as in Example 1, where a large number of headings are displayed in various degrees of subordination to the general superordinate 'Armed Hostility'.
Main categories begin with capital letters and subordinate categories with lower case.
Within each stage in the hierarchy, word meanings are arranged in chronological order, thus allowing access to the terms used for particular concepts in particular periods, as in Example 2. Each word is followed by its first date of use as recorded in NOED , and, as appropriate, its last date, or a dash to indicate currency up to the present, and any restrictive labels such as Scots . All Old English words are simply designated 'OE'.