The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow Page A

The Academy accused him of plagiarism and dragged him into court. Furetière argued, quite sensibly, that he couldn’t possibly define technical terms of navigation or chemistry without defining words such as “sea” and “fire,” which were part of the vocabulary of bon usage. In the end he lost his privilege and the Academy even expelled him, a very rare case. Ostracized and ill, Furetière sold his work to a Dutch publisher; he died in 1688, two years before his dictionary was printed.
    Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel was far superior to that of the Academy. It was one of the greatest achievements of seventeenth-century lexicography and one of the most remarkable intellectual accomplishments of its time. Working alone, he produced the world’s first encyclopedic dictionary, with forty-five thousand entries—in less than twenty years. (Compare the achievement of Samuel Johnson, who wrote his English dictionary, published in 1755, with the help of seven lexicographers over a period of seven years.) While many spelling variations remained from the previous century— français was still spelled françoys— the language of Furetière’s dictionary was modern. The definitions are clear, objective and rarely judgemental. He defines the sexual organs in graphic terms, and his definitions of words such as cul (ass) and merde (shit) have none of the prudishness one would expect from the priest he was. Furetière was interested in all aspects of human activity, including anatomy, medicine, agriculture, the navy and the sciences. His definition of sucrerie (sugar mill) distinguishes those of the West Indies from those in Europe. The author even included a novelty: a thematic index that listed words by trade, for readers who were seeking definitions of specific terms used by, say, butchers or shoemakers. But Furetière’s reputation was destroyed by the Academy, and no one ever spoke of Le Furetière as they did of Le Richelet or would later of dictionaries such as Le Robert and Le Larousse. Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel did, however, suffer the ultimate tribute of greatness—it was copied, pillaged and imitated, and it ultimately inspired the work of the eighteenth-century Encyclopedists.
    Spurred on by the controversy and the looming prospect of ridicule, the Academy finally published Le dictionnaire de l’Académie française in 1694, after fifty-five years of work. Even the King could not quite hide his disappointment when it was presented to him. “ Messieurs, voici un ouvrage attendu depuis fort longtemps ” (“Gentlemen, this is a long-awaited work”) was all he had to say. The dictionary impressed no one in France. It had only thirteen thousand definitions. Spellings in the Academy dictionary were similar to Furetière’s, but definitions were concise to the point of being curt. Man, for instance, was defined as animal raisonnable (animal with reason). Woman was “ la femelle de l’homme ” (“the female of man”). The order of entries was generally alphabetical, but many words were classified etymologically, so that matrice (women’s reproductive organs) came right below mère (mother). The Academy’s dictionary was sharper on normative comments, including long discussions of usage, such as the proper use of moy (me) and je (I). It condemned archaic terms with the comment “ Il est vieux ” (“It’s old”) after the definition. But the omissions were glaring—the Academy almost forgot to include the word académie, and left out the word françoys until the third edition, in 1740.
    Some of the Academy’s choices were frankly bizarre. The word anglais (English) was missing from every edition, but is expected to appear in the latest edition, slated for the 2010s. This absence is all the more puzzling since anglais is the root of accepted terms such as anglaise (a dance), anglican, anglicanisme, angliciser, anglicisme, anglomane, anglophilie, anglophile, anglophobe and anglophobie