The ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'' is the official

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...

of the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...

. The

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

is France's official authority on the usages,

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

, and

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power. Sometimes, even governmental authorities disregard the Académie's rulings. the eighth edition of 1935 is the latest complete edition, with the ninth edition in progress, available online up to ''Sérénissime''.

Publication

A special Commission (''Commission du dictionnaire'') composed of several (but not all) of the members of the Académie undertakes the compilation of the dictionary. It has published thirteen editions of the dictionary, of which three were preliminary, eight were complete, and two were supplements for specialised words. The completed edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, the first official dictionary of the French language, was presented upon completion by the Académie to King

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...

. Guillaume Massieu, ''Oeuvres de Mr de Tourreil'' (Brunet, 1721) Vol. I, pp. ix–x. on 24 August 1694. Preliminary editions: * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (from ''A'' to ''Aversion''), pre-edition,

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, 1687 * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (from ''A'' to ''Confiture''), pre-edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1687 * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (from ''A'' to ''Neuf''), pre-edition, Paris, 1687 Nodier - Ackermann - Vocabulaire de la langue française

Nodier - Ackermann - Vocabulaire de la langue française

Complete editions: * (1st edition), Paris, 1694 * ''Nouveau Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy'' (2nd edition), Paris, 1718 * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (3rd edition), Paris, 1740 * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (4th edition), Paris, 1762 * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'' (5th edition), Paris, 1798 * ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'' (6th edition), Paris, 1835 * ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'' (7th edition), Paris, 1879 * ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'' (8th edition), Paris, 1932–1935 Supplementary editions for the sciences, arts, and technology: * Corneille, Thomas, ''Le Dictionnaire des Arts et des Sciences'', Paris, 1694 * Barré, Louis, ''Complément du Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'', Paris, 1842 In 1778, the Académie attempted to compile a "historical dictionary" of the French language. The project was later abandoned, having failed to progress beyond the letter "A". The 8th edition of 1935 contained approximately 35,000 words. The Académie continues work on the ninth edition, begun in 1986, of which the first volume (''A'' to ''Enzyme'') was published in 1992 (), the second (''Éocène'' to ''Mappemonde'') in 2000 (), and the third (''Maquereau'' to ''Quotité'') in 2011 (). As the work goes on, additional parts of the ''Dictionnaire'' are published in the ''Documents administratifs'' of the ''

Journal Officiel A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

'', and posted online. The finalised ninth edition is expected to contain about 28,000 new words (60,000 in total). In part because the current edition dates from 1935, other dictionaries (such as those published by Larousse and

Le Robert Le Robert (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Wobè) is a town and the third-largest commune in the French overseas department of Martinique. It is located in the northeastern (Atlantic) side of the island of Martinique. It contains the Sainte Ros ...

) are more commonly used as everyday reference sources than that of the Académie.

Encoding

The

IETF language tag An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code or tag that is used to identify human languages in the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the su ...

s have registered for Early Modern French, "17th century French, as catalogued in the "Dictionnaire de l'académie françoise", 4eme ed. 1694; frequently includes elements of Middle French, as this is a transitional period".

References

External links

Searchable original texts

University of Chicago, The ARTFL Project, ''Dictionnaires d'autrefois''
Full text, searchable French dictionaries of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Includes: ''Dictionnaire de L'Académie française'': 1st (1694), 4th (1762), 5th (1798), 6th (1835), and 8th (1932–5) editions;

Jean Nicot Jean Nicot de Villemain (; 1530 – May 4, 1604) was a French diplomat and scholar. He is famous for being the first to bring tobacco to France, including snuff tobacco. Nicotine is named after the tobacco plant ''Nicotiana tabacum,'' which in tur ...

's ''Thresor de la langue française'' (1606), Jean-François Féraud's ''Dictionaire critique de la langue française'' (1787–1788), and

Émile Littré Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (; 1 February 18012 June 1881) was a French lexicographer, freemason and philosopher, best known for his '' Dictionnaire de la langue française'', commonly called . Biography Littré was born in Paris. His father, ...

's ''Dictionnaire de la langue française'' (1872–1877)
Académie française, ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'', 4th edition online
official site
Académie française, ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'', 8th edition online
official site
Académie française, ''Dictionnaire de l'Académie française'', 9th edition online
official site, work-in-progress with regular updates

Facsimile reproductions

Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France: * ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy'', 1st edition (1694)
vol. 1vol. 2
* ''Nouveau Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy'', 2nd edition (1718)
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* ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'', 3rd edition (1740)
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* ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'', 4th edition (1762)
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* ''Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise'', 5th edition (1798)
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* ''Dictionnaire de L'Académie française'', 6th edition (1835)
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* ''Dictionnaire de L'Académie française'', 7th edition (1878)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dictionnaire de l'Academie francaise