Beginning in the 1970s, several strands of European lexicology of the French language took root in Quebec. This article first outlines the major phases in the discipline’s development from France to Quebec before examining the intellectual lineage between J.-C. Boulanger and the French lexicologist-lexicographer A. Rey. The article traces the origins of their decades-long intellectual association and outlines several of the major contributions both scholars made to lexicology through their engagement with a wide range of subjects, spanning neology and the diversity of attested language norms to proper names (and their derivatives) and the status of terminological units, as well as the semantic evolution of words.