This article studies historical changes of the original form and meaning of French words at the modern stage of vocabulary development on the basis of Sylvie Brunet’s new etymological dictionary. It becomes particularly difficult to perform an etymological analysis when one is trying to clarify semantic links, semantic development and the reconstruction of the primary meaning of a word. These difficulties are determined by the diversity and significance of semantic changes.

etymology, etymologization of words, structural elements of the word, reconstruction, primary form, motivation, semantic change, lexicography

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