I think you're talking about a so-called "word finder". I used to have one, until someone "borrowed" it about 5 years ago. It listed hundreds of words under categories, and sub-categories like, "sailing" (knots, etc,), "military" (guns, etc.), "weather" (clouds etc.) and so on. I think it was made for crossword buffs, but it was a useful reference tool when you couldn't even remember a word closely relating to the word you were looking for, and was interesting to browse too.

Blast that infernal borrower of books.

Edit: Here it is:

Wordsworth Word Finder

Last edited by Hydra; 04/26/2007 4:43 AM.