The lexicographic adventure of the lexem “Patrimoine” in French dictionaries

This article is devoted to the diachronic study of the particularities of the lexicographic description of the lexeme patrimoine in French dictionaries. Already present in the nomenclature of the first French dictionary of Robert Estienne in 1539 and treated there as a monosemic word, it acquires, over time, meanings of a higher level of abstraction. Thanks to semantic neology, this lexeme acquires new combinatorial possibilities which are listed in modern dictionaries.