http://www.eleganthack.com/archives/002165.html#002165

A thesaurus is a very advanced way of controlling vocabulary and in general shows:

1. Equivalence – variants and preferred terms
2. Hierarchical – Broader and Narrower
3. Associative – "see also" references

http://www.techquila.com/tmsinia3.html describes a thesaurus in the context of topic maps.