Thesaurus abuse occurs when an author dredges up more synonyms than are actually necessary in a work to make themselves seem smarter than they actually are. This often results in awkward urple prose and, often, the need to contact the Department of Redundancy Department. After all, why describe something as shiny when you could use adamantine? Or lustrous, nacreous, pearlescent, shimmering, vitreous ... you get the point.