Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française is the official dictionary of the French language.

Title page of the 6th edition of the Académie's dictionary (1835)

The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power. Sometimes, even governmental authorities disregard the Académie's rulings.

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.[1][2] These include:

Preliminary editions:

  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise (from A to Aversion), pre-edition, Frankfurt am Main, 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
Vocabulaire de la langue française; par MM. Nodier et Ackermann, Paris, 1868

Complete editions:

  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy (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 (ISBN 2-213-62142-X), the second (Éocène to Mappemonde) in 2000 (ISBN 2-213-62143-8), and the third (Maquereau to Quotité) in 2011 (ISBN 2-213-66640-7). As the work goes on, additional parts of the Dictionnaire are published in the Documents administratifs of the Journal Officiel, 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) are more commonly used as everyday reference sources than the Académie's.

gollark: Yes.
gollark: Voltage is electric potential difference.
gollark: Why do I keep typing that?
gollark: Without the minus.
gollark: Correction: there is no minus sign, it's just -L dI/dt.

See also

References
  1. Classiques Garnier numérique Archived 2014-07-25 at the Wayback Machine, Corpus of Dictionaries of the French Academy (from the 17th to the 20th Century), Retrieved 2011-03-17
  2. Dictionaries of the Académie française (17th to 20th century), Classiques Garnier numérique

Searchable original texts

Facsimile reproductions

Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France:

  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise dedié au Roy, 1st edition (1694), vol. 1, vol. 2
  • Nouveau Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise dedié au Roy, 2nd edition (1718), vol.
  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 3rd edition (1740), vol. 1, vol .2
  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 4th edition (1762), vol. 1, vol. 2
  • Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 5th edition (1798), vol. 1, vol. 2
  • Dictionnaire de L'Académie française, 6th edition (1835), vol. 1, vol. 2
  • Dictionnaire de L'Académie française, 7th edition (1878), vol. 1, vol. 2
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