Abstract: This article examines the reasons for the emergence of three French dictionaries of rhyme at the end of the sixteenth century (Lefèvre-Tabourot, Le Gaygnard, La Noue), before examining their motivations, and the different uses they encouraged. These dictionaries, veritable anthologies of rhyme, sometimes taken from the best poets, are similar to dictionaries of language, developing definitions and meta-discursive glosses incorporating specialist lexicon or dialect where necessary.
