A clean, fast thesaurus plugin for Vim that uses a standalone Go binary to query a local mthesaur.txt file.
Inspired by the Python-based thesaurus_query plugin, this implementation leverages a single Go binary for speed and simplicity.

• Fast: Written in Go for optimal performance
• Offline: Works entirely offline with local mthesaur.txt file
• Clean: Minimal dependencies, no Python required
• Simple: Easy to use commands and key mappings

• Go compiler (only if you wish to build your own binary, otherwise ore-built binaries are available)
• mthesaur.txt file from Project Gutenberg

Assuming you have Go installed, installed and build the binary in one go (pun intended)

Using Vim-Plug

Plug 'wolandark/mthesaur-vim',{'do': 'make build'}

Download the mthesaur.txt file:

mkdir -p ~/.vim
wget http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3202/files/mthesaur.txt -O ~/.vim/mthesaur.txt

(needs Vim 8+)

git clone [email protected]:wolandark/mthesaur-vim.git ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start/mthesaur-vim

Then build the binary:

cd ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start/mthesaur-vim
make build

or

make build-all

to build for all platforms.

Alternatively, you can download pre-built binaries from realeases. See Binary Detection

The same goes for other plugin managers.

Finally Download the mthesaur.txt file:

mkdir -p ~/.vim
wget http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3202/files/mthesaur.txt -O ~/.vim/mthesaur.txt

You can choose to build the binary and install it system-wide or locally. The binary can be used independently as well.

# System-wide installation (requires sudo)
make install
   
# Or local installation
make install-local

Add to your PATH (if using local installation):

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Variables are optional. The plugin expects ~/.vim/mthesaur.txt by default, and auto-detects the Go binary on its own.

• g:mthesaur_binary: Path to the Go binary (auto-detected if not set)
• g:mthesaur_file: Path to mthesaur.txt file (default: "~/.vim/mthesaur.txt")
• g:mthesaur_map_keys: Enable key mappings (default: 1)

The plugin automatically detects the binary in this order:

1. g:mthesaur_binary (if set manually)
2. {plugin_dir}/build/mthesaur (built binary)
3. {plugin_dir}/mthesaur (root directory binary)
4. mthesaur (system PATH)

" Custom binary path (optional - auto-detection works for most cases)
let g:mthesaur_binary = "/path/to/your/mthesaur"

" Custom thesaurus file location
let g:mthesaur_file = "~/.config/nvim/thesaurus/mthesaur.txt"

" Disable key mappings
let g:mthesaur_map_keys = 0

• :MThesaur <word> - Look up synonyms for a word (display in buffer)
• :MThesaurCurrentWord - Look up synonyms for word under cursor (display in buffer)
• :MThesaurReplace <word> - Look up synonyms and replace word interactively
• :MThesaurReplaceCurrentWord - Look up synonyms for word under cursor and replace interactively
• :MThesaurInfo - Show plugin configuration and binary path information

# build the binary
make build

# build the binary for all platforms
make build-all

# Test the binary
make test

# Install system-wide
make install

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

Same as Vim. See :help license.