Dictionnaire de Trévoux

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The Dictionnaire de Trévoux is a French dictionary published in several editions from 1704 to 1771. It got its nickname because it was published in Trévoux, a town near Lyon. In the 18th century many people thought it was directed by Jesuits, and some scholars still consider that possible.

The first edition (1704) was almost a reprint of Antoine Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel (1690) with a few revisions and added articles, plus a Latin–French dictionary in the last volume. Later, the work was pirated by publisher Pierre Antoine from Nancy, who released two competing editions before agreeing to cooperate on the 1752 edition. From the expanded second edition (1721) onward, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux was respected and widely used, and it became an important source for Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia (1728) and the Encyclopédie (1751–72).