Antoine Furetière (December 28, 1619 - May 14, 1688), French scholar and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris. December 28 is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 3 days remaining. ... Events May 13 - Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason. ... May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... Events A high-powered conspiracy of notables, the Immortal Seven, invite William and Mary to depose James II of England. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ...

He first studied law, and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various preferments became abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662. In his leisure moments he devoted himself to letters, and in virtue of his satires--Nouvelle Allégorique, ou histoire des derniers troubles arrives au royaume d'éloquence (1658); Voyage de Mercure (1653)--he was admitted a member of the Académie française in 1662. That learned body had long promised a complete dictionary of the French tongue; and when they heard that Furetière was on the point of issuing a work of a similar nature, they interfered, alleging that he had purloined from their stores, and that they possessed the exclusive privilege of publishing such a book. The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... Manual of Specialised Lexicography, Henning Bergenholtz/Sven Tarp (eds. ...

After much bitter recrimination on both sides the offender was expelled in 1685; but for this act of injustice he took a severe revenge in his satire, Couches de l'académie (Amsterdam, 1687). His Dictionnaire universel was posthumously published in. 1690 (Rotterdam, 2 vols.). It was afterwards revised and improved by the Protestant jurist, Henri Basnage de Beauval (1656-1710), who published his edition (3 vols.) in 1701; and it was only superseded by the compilation known as the Dictionnaire de Trévoux (Paris, 3 vols., 1704; 7th ed., 5 vols., 1771), which was in fact little more than a reimpression of Basnage's edition. Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ...

Furetière is perhaps even better known as the author of Le Roman bourgeois (1666). It cast ridicule on the fashionable romances of Mlle de Scudéry and of La Calprenède, and is of interest as descriptive of the everyday life of his times. There is no element of burlesque, as in Scarron's Roman comique, but the author contents himself with stringing together a number of episodes and portraits, obviously drawn from life, without much attempt at sequence. The book was edited in 1854 by Edward Fournier and Charles Asselineau and by P. Jannet. Madeleine de Scudéry (November 15, 1607 _ June 2, 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. ... Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède (1609 or 1610 - 1663) was a French novelist and dramatist. ... Paul Scarron (c. ...

The Fureteriana, which appeared in Paris eight years after Furetière's death, is a collection of but little value.

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.