Roget's Thesaurus agreed Monday to strike a listing for the word "arab" that gave as synonyms "bag lady," "drifter" and "hobo" after an Arab-American group complained.

The entry, on thesaurus.com, listed the word as a noun meaning "beggar" and gave 16 pejorative synonyms. It was noticed by a member of the American-Arab Forum, a non-profit Arab advocacy group that has a mailing address in Paterson.

"I looked it up and I couldn't believe what I was seeing," said Aref Assaf, the group's president. "That's what an arab means? All these awful, bad things?"

The group called on Roget's Thesaurus to immediately remove "such outrageous, insulting and derogatory definitions" and to issue a public apology.

Assaf said if a community member wasn't poking around on the Internet, his group never would have known about the listing.

"The company admitted this has been online for several years," said Assaf, of Denville. "We found them to be friendly and responsive when we got ahold of them, though."

On Monday, a search of the word "Arab" turned up no results.

Assaf said now that the offensive definition has been removed, the community wants two additional steps.

First, to list the definition simply as someone who speaks Arabic or comes from one of the 22 Arab states.

"Second, we want the company to issue an apology," Assaf said. "To say this was unintentional and we apologize for any hurt the Arab American community may have felt is enough."

Assaf wouldn't say how many people belong to the American-Arab Forum.

Staff Writer Eman Varoqua contributed to this article, which contains material from The Associated Press.