as always, dale, your post meanders too much for me to tell exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish. but here is one thought, regarding use of an online/inline Thesaurus.

If you are using one of the mainstream browsers (IE7, firefox) you can add (for instance) Thesaurus.com to the browser's Search Box. The usual practice is to have Google.com set as the default search engine for this search box, but you can add as many additional engines as you like and use them just as you use the default. If this idea interests you, I can provide details. (it would be helpful, of course, to know which browser you actually use.)