TheDictionnaire de l'Académie française (French pronunciation:[diksjɔnɛːʁdəlakademifʁɑ̃sɛːz]; English:Dictionary of the French academy) is aFrench languagedictionary published by theAcadémie française.
TheAcadémie française is an institution tasked with establishing rules for the use of the French language, the compilation of a dictionary being one of its primary tasks.[1] Although it makes recommendations for the correct use of French, they carry no legal power, and are frequently disregarded, including by government authorities. The ninth edition was completed in November 2024, and is available online in its entirety along with all previous editions.[2]
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.[3] The completed edition of theDictionnaire de l'Académie française, the first official dictionary of the French language, was presented upon completion by the Académie to KingLouis XIV.[4] on 24 August 1694.
Preliminary editions:
Complete editions:
Supplementary editions for the sciences, arts, and technology:
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".
Work on the ninth edition started in 1986, and was concluded in 2024 by the publication of its last volume. It was published in four volumes starting in 1992:
The completed ninth edition was presented by the Académie Française to French presidentEmmanuel Macron on 14 November 2024.[5] With almost 53,000 words, it contains 21,000 new words compared to the 8th edition.[2] Given that, by the time all volumes were completed, the first volume was already 32 years old and thus long out of date, the Académie published addenda of 189 words which had not been added to their respective volumes at the time of their publication.[6]
In part due to the unusually slow publication cycle of theDictionnaire de l'Académie Française, other dictionaries (such as those published byLarousse andLe Robert) are more commonly used as everyday reference sources.[citation needed] They are also more comprehensive, with theGrand Robert counting 350,000 words.
TheIETF language tags have registeredfr-1694acad forEarly 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".[7]
Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France:
