If you know the word and you&#x27;re looking for synonyms, use a thesaurus.[1]<p>If you know the general idea and want a more precise word to describe it, I&#x27;d look into WordNet, especially concepts like hyponyms (subsets of a general word, car -&gt; ambulance) and troponyms (different ways of performing the word, useful for verbs, e.g. eat -&gt; slurp, gobble, peck).[2]<p>If you know the context and you want a word that &quot;sounds good&quot; in that context, use a collocations dictionary.[3]<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thesaurus.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thesaurus.com&#x2F;</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wordnetweb.princeton.edu&#x2F;perl&#x2F;webwn" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wordnetweb.princeton.edu&#x2F;perl&#x2F;webwn</a>
[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ozdic.com&#x2F;collocation-dictionary&#x2F;pupil" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ozdic.com&#x2F;collocation-dictionary&#x2F;pupil</a>