El arte diccionarista de Sebastián de Covarrubias

Abstract

The complete edition of the unpublished manuscript Suplemento al Tesoro de la lengua castellana by Sebastián de Covarrubias provides some necessary clues to the understanding of its author's lexicographic criteria and of a number of personal details, which, in the course of time, have made Covarrubias' work to be considered as something original and unique among the huge Spanish lexicography. Those details of biographic, anecdotic, popular, gastronomic type do not constitute strictly lexicographical information, but this kind of information together with some other of purely lexicographical interest permits us to recompose Covarrubias' skill as a lexicographer, his everyday work in the making-up of the first monolingual dictionary of the Spanish language.