Ubiquitous in French language dictionaries during the Ancien Régime, from the 16th to the 18th century, the lexicographical example warrants a comprehensive, comparative, diachronic, and therefore linguistic study, which it has not yet received despite numerous works already published. The often fragmented or highly specialized studies, lacking sufficient historical contextualization of the texts, without a comparative dimension, though longstanding, require reevaluation for a precise delineation of the linguistic questions inherent to the lexicographical example.