Tresor de la langue française, (
French: “Treasury of the French Language”) in full Tresor de la langue française: dictionnaire de la langue de XIXe et du XXe siècle (1789–1960), comprehensive etymological and historical dictionary of the French language originally published in 16 volumes (1971–94).
In the 1960s more than 250,000,000 word examples were collected for use in the dictionary. Publication began in 1971, but after two volumes the scope of the work was scaled back dramatically from 60 planned volumes. Each entry supplies pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet, definition, orthography, etymology with sources, and history. The first two volumes contain extremely numerous quotations citing usage; this feature was reduced in the third and subsequent volumes. Definitions in the later volumes are still treated comprehensively with illustrative quotations, but not to the extent first envisioned by the Centre de Recherche pour un Tresor de la Langue Française, which was responsible for administering the dictionary’s publication. At the turn of the 21st century the dictionary was also available online and on CD-ROM.