The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) is a cooperative enterprise of the Laboratoire ATILF (Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Division of the Humanities, the Division of the Social Sciences, and Electronic Text Services (ETS) of the University of Chicago.

Reference Collection Database Home Onelook Search User Manual ARTFL Project

Dictionnaires d'autrefois
French dictionaries of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries

Try the new search engine to simultaneously query Jean Nicot's Thresor de la langue française (1606), Jean-François Féraud's Dictionaire critique de la langue française (Marseille, Mossy 1787-1788), Émile Littré's Dictionnaire de la langue française (1872-1877) and the Dictionnaire de L'Académie française 1st (1694), 4th (1762), 5th (1798), 6th (1835), and 8th (1932-5) editions. Enter one word, accents optional (eg., parlement or humanité), and press Find:

  

  • Jean Nicot, Thresor de la langue françoyse, tant ancienne que moderne

    « Et n'est cedit mot mis en ce dictionaire, si n'est pourautant qu'il se trouve en aucuns anciens livres François. »

    Jean Nicot's Thresor de la langue françoyse is the key to the development of French lexicography. The sum of four editions of Robert Estienne's bilingual Dictionaire françois-latin, the Thresor assumed, through the contributions of Nicot, the nature of a monolingual French dictionary.
     

    		•

  • Jean-François Féraud, Dictionaire critique de la langue française

    Jean-François Féraud's Dictionaire critique de la langue française (1787-1788) is far from a mere general dictionary. Féraud's major concern in this wide and comprehensive release of his Dictionnaire grammatical is to provide foreigners or people from the remote regions of France with a comprehensive and easy guide to authorized, proper usage of French. Not only does he mention and criticize the major sources of good usage, such as the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, Trévoux's or Richelet's dictionaries, he also adds a wide range of his own grammatical remarks, proving in doing so to be one of the most penetrating observers of post-classical French language. As such, it will help many students and scholars towards a better understanding of Rousseau, Diderot, and Beaumarchais' fascinating works. Keep it on your electronic desk!

    « Celui-ci est un vrai DICTIONAIRE CRITIQUE, où la Langue est complètement analysée. C'est un Comentaire suivi de tous les mots, qui sont susceptibles de quelque observation; un Recueuil, qui laisse peu à desirer; des Remarques, qui peûvent éclaircir les doutes et lever les dificultés, que font naître tous les jours les bizârres irrégularités de l'Usage. C'est la Critique des Auteurs et l'examen, la comparaison, critique aussi, des divers Dictionaires. Nous ôsons croire qu'il réunit les avantages de tous, et qu'il y ajoute des utilités, qui ne se troûvent dans aucun. » (Préface de la première édition)

  • Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française

    « On dit d'un mauvais traducteur, qu'il fait sa traduction à coups de Dictionnaire. »

    The Académie française was founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 with the primary goal of creating a French dictionary. A total of eight editions have been published in the years since its foundation, from the first edition in 1694 up until the eighth edition in 1935. The ninth edition is currently in progress. The ARTFL Project, in collaboration with the Projet d'informatisation du Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, is pleased to offer electronic versions of the first (1694), 4th (1762), 5th (1798), 6th (1835), and 8th (1932-5) editions.

    		•
     

  • Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française

    Thanks to data provided by François Gannaz at XMLittré, we have incorporated Émile Littré's literary dictionary of classical French (1872-1877) into our Dictionnaires d'autrefois Collection.

    • More ARTFL Dictionaries

  • Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique

    « Il y a peu de livres d'une utilité aussi générale qu'un Dictionaire Historique. »

    Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique stands as the supreme achievement of one of the seventeenth century's most prominent men of letters. Originally conceived as a response to the errors in Louis Moréri's Grand dictionnaire historique, his Dictionnaire grew to be an exemplary work of critical methodology. Called the "Arsenal of the Enlightenment", it was pillaged and re-edited throughout the 18th century by believers and sceptics alike. The ARTFL Project offers here a facsimile version of the 1740 edition.

    		•

  • Louis Moréri, Le Grand dictionnaire historique

    From 1671 to 1759, this important predecessor to modern encyclopedias went through twenty editions, before it finally succumbed to the Encyclopedie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des metiers. Moreri designed his encyclopedic work partly as a defense of the worldview of the Roman Catholic Church, and that editorial approach prompted competition from a rival encyclopedia, Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique. Moreri's work is noteworthy for its emphasis on historical and biographical entries, neglected by Bayle as well as by other competitors such as Ephraim Chamber's Cyclopedia.


  • Robert Estienne, Dictionarium latinogallicum

    The third edition (1552) of Robert Estienne's Dictionarium latinogallicum marks the culmination of his work on the Latin-French dictionary. Estienne, the father of modern Classical Latin and French lexicography (cf. Starnes 1954), had established for Classical Latin and 16th-century French a tripartite series of dictionaries: for Latin a monolingual Thesaurus intended for scholars, and two Latin-French dictionaries, one, the Dictionarium latinogallicum, for advanced students, and an abridged version, the Dictionariolum puerorum latinogallicum, for beginners. 

    		•

    Comments Electronic Full-Text Sources Subscription Information Current Subscribers