Does this French word exist? What the Dictionnaire des francophones records

The Dictionnaire des francophones launched on 16 March 2021 with 619,278 definitions drawn from seven resources, one of them an inventory covering eleven French-speaking African countries, according to its compendium dated 12 March 2021. Knowing a word has been recorded still does not tell you whether you can use it in front of the person listening.

What is the Dictionnaire des francophones, and what does it count?

It is a collaborative online dictionary devoted to French as it is used around the world, not to the French of France alone. It brings together word inventories produced separately in Africa, Belgium, Quebec and France.

The figures come from its compendium, dated 12 March 2021 and written at Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. It announces 619,278 "définitions pour des mots et expressions", plus 1,813,292 entries for inflected forms. The launch is still in the future tense there, "prévu le 16 mars 2021". The project, launched by the President of the Republic in March 2018, is steered, as the French Ministry of Culture states, by the délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France.

English works the same way, which makes this easy to grasp: a word that is ordinary in Lagos or Mumbai may be unknown in Manchester, and reference dictionaries record some regional uses without recording them all. French is no different. Since 2021 it simply has a tool that sets those variants side by side instead of sorting them.

Where do the recorded words come from?

The compendium names seven integrated resources, each with its own scope and date:

• the Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire, worked on "de 1977 à sa publication en 1988", covering "onze pays d'Afrique francophone";
• Wiktionary, whose French section "a débuté en mars 2004" and describes "plus de 420 000 mots de français";
• the Dictionnaire des synonymes, des mots et expressions du français parlé dans le monde, "publié en ligne en 2017", "plus de 3 700 termes";
• the Grand Dictionnaire terminologique of the Office québécois de la langue française, with "plus de 4 000 entrées" integrated;
• Belgicismes, for the lexical particularities of Belgian French, "publié initialement en 1994";
• the Dictionnaire des régionalismes de France, published in 2001;
• the Base de données lexicographiques panfrancophone, "publiée en ligne à partir de 2004", which "décrit plus de 23 000 sens".

An eighth, FranceTerme, "en ligne depuis mars 2008" with "plus de 7 000 termes récents", is given as being integrated.

The dictionary is therefore rich wherever inventories already existed, and thinner elsewhere.

Is a recorded word a word you can use?

Recording is not recommending. An inventory notes that a word was observed somewhere; it does not say whether it suits the email you are writing this morning. That is the job of a language authority, and the Office québécois de la langue française describes its own without hedging: its interventions rest on "le français standard tel qu'il est employé au Québec", and it retains uses that "sont contemporains", that "appartiennent à un niveau de langue neutre ou soutenu", and that "sont conformes au mode de formation des mots du français et à sa syntaxe".

That position is visible in its entries through a colour code: green for "les termes privilégiés", yellow for "les termes utilisés dans certains contextes", red for "les termes déconseillés".

Two questions follow one another, then, and their answers are independent: does this word exist somewhere, and is it expected here? Our article on verlan and slang handles the second for informal register, and the one on who decides what is correct in French shows that the bodies you might consult do not all answer alike.

How do you use it as a learner?

Three uses. First, understanding a word heard in a Quebec series or a Belgian conversation: a pan-francophone inventory answers where a France-centred dictionary stays silent. Our articles on Quebec French and on French numbers from soixante-dix to septante give examples.

Second, spotting where a word comes from before using it. Knowing that "courriel" is ordinary in Quebec, or that "septante" is heard in Belgium and Switzerland, changes how you deploy it in front of a Parisian.

Third, not confusing abundance with a syllabus: 619,278 definitions are not 619,278 words to learn. A tool like this settles a one-off doubt; it does not set a target. Our level test places your starting point better.

What do these figures not tell you?

First point, and the most instructive: two documents from the same producer, published on the same day, give two different counts. The compendium announces 619,278 definitions, while the Ministry of Culture page, also published on 12 March 2021, writes "plus de 400 000 mots". They do not contradict each other: they do not count the same object, since one word often carries several definitions. They neither add up nor compare. So we do not choose, and we cite each unit with its document.

Second point: these are launch figures, not today's. A collaborative dictionary keeps receiving contributions, and we found no more recent count that was both dated and attributed. Any number you read elsewhere without a date deserves the same caution.

Third point: an inventory is not a measure of usage. Those 619,278 definitions say what has been recorded, not what people say: a word observed once in 1988 and a word used daily in Dakar carry the same weight there.

Fourth point: the compendium gives no entry count for Belgicismes or for the regionalisms of France, and it describes the pan-francophone database as resting on "une vingtaine de groupes de recherches" without an exact number. We have filled none of those gaps with a calculation, and we do not reproduce a visibly incomplete year printed in one of its sentences.

The decision rule comes down to three moves. First, find where the word was observed. Then check whether a language authority flags it as informal, discouraged or restricted to one context. Then use it, or replace it, depending on who you are speaking to.

A dictionary tells you a word exists somewhere. It does not tell you whether you can use it here and now, in front of this person. That is what another speaker brings: at Frenchee, classes are live with qualified native teachers, one to one or in small groups of three to five, with no subscription.

Sources

• Compendium du Dictionnaire des francophones, 12 March 2021
• Office québécois de la langue française, editorial policy of the Vitrine linguistique