ABSTRACT
The Diccionario de uso del español (henceforth DUE) by María Moliner, the first edition of which was published between 1966 (first volume) and 1967 (second volume), is one of the most consulted Spanish dictionaries of the twentieth century. The author’s personal approach contributed to making it innovative in various aspects. In this chapter, we highlight the essential characteristics of the DUE, namely that it is monolingual, general, synchronous, descriptive, essentially of standard Spanish, and within each entry combines the onomasiological and semasiological criteria for the analysis of the lexicon with abundant (invented) examples. It is very rich in information concerning not only the meaning of the words but also their syntagmatics, the pragmatic characterization of their use, and their phraseological fixations. We note the modifications introduced in the three editions published after the first one, outline the numerous studies to which it has given rise, and explore the essential traits of María Moliner’s professional personality. Moliner’s work on the Estudio de Filología de Aragón (1916–1921) receives particular attention as it provides an introduction to the lexicographic technique.
