Langue française - Année 1995 - Volume 105 - Numéro 1 - Pages 120-125J. Picoche In this paper, the author studies the polysemic word cœur (heart) in the French lexicon. The author discusses various synchronic definitions given by Jean Dubois and Igor Melc'uk and presents her own lexicographic treatment within the approach of Gustave Guillaume. She concludes on unavoidable complexity for such polysémie words. The structure of a noun such as cœur cannot be reproduced for other items. There are two types of descriptions of these semantic archetypes : the analytical one which leads to formal treatments and the synthetic one which leads to systematic teaching of the vocabulary of languages. 6 pages Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.