Liz Bureman on thewritepractice.com makes a few good points about using a thesaurus. You have to be thoughtful with word use, thesaurus use or not. My favorite thesaurus is “Roget’s International Thesaurus,” It is so all encompassing for word derivations, if you can’t find a word in this book you want to use, I’d just give up.

Take It Easy With the Thesaurus.