The commentator who observed in 1667, We have hardly any words that fully express French naivetd, ennui, bizarre, concert ... emotion, defer, effort (Evelyn) illustrated both extent of French borrowings and deferential English attitude to them. The same ingredients are seen in a contemporary business report in a news magazine noting the reasons for company's eclat, in newspaper sports pages' reference to a team as something of a cause celkbre, in fashion displays of haute couture, in movie review comments on film noir and mise-en-scene of productions, in critical discussions of a writer's oeuvre. It is a rare university student or adult learner who has not encountered nomr de plume, faux pas, a la carte, avant-garde, etc. Despite prevalence of French-inEnglish its translation into Spanish poses unique problems: what exactly are we translating, English, French, both? Do we head for an English-Spanish or French-Spanish dictionary? Can we transpose French, untranslated, into Spanish context, or are paraphrase and explanation in order? With few exceptions, English-Spanish dictionaries eschew problem. Using relatively abridged Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary as an operational definition of what constitutes English usage, there is an evident disparity between it and such common bilingual dictionaries as Collins, Appleton's, Veldzquez, New World and Chicago which do not include even more common terms such as bon vivant, faux pas, nouveau riche, passe and many others acknowledged by Webster's. Cassell's and Bantam have a few listings not found elsewhere-but only on Spanish side.1 Simon and Schuster's is an exception to rule, yet its renderings of French words and phrases in English relies on awkward Spanish paraphrase. Agentprovocateur, for example, is not given as agente provocador but explained, enemigo insospechado que se infiltra... etc. While it is true, as S. & S. maintains, that bete noir is a persona o cosa detestable, this does not clue reader to similar sense of pesadilla or coco in a context such as, Sin la llamada 'amenaza venezolana' perderia su 'coco' favorito para asustar al pueblo de Guyana (Ely, 43). Mgnage d trois, described only as an arreglo mediante el cual una pareja de c sados... etc. would presuppose a full explanation on every occasion since ready terms like tridngulo are missed. Recourse to a French-Spanish dictionary does not circumvent problem. Essentially, because it deals with standard French rather than transmuted borrowings, standard French-Spanish dictionary may miss important changes in recipient language. For example, resume has come to mean a type of summary related to careers and job applications; as such, it is expressible by a variety of contemporary formulations including curriculum vitae and historial profesional. Consequently, standard translation from French to Spanish resumen is usually misleading. Similarly, vignette, originally a page ornament, today refers to any sharply etched incident or revealing story while Spanish vinieta from same root remains largely a specific term in book illustration although, in some dialects, it is generalizing in a different direction, coming to denote a cartoon panel. Equally common are instances where a term retains both common and distinct characteristics; etiqueta can refer to manners, a label or, in traje de etiqueta, formal dress, while clich (= clise) denotes a film negative as well as a trite expression. In addition, doublets or borrowings of same word at different times, may produce different meanings. Naif and naive have very recently been used in Spanish to denote a style of painting similar to primitivism (pintura nail'), without any broader se se of English terms. These are only instances of more general phenomenon of radiation of meaning, tendency of terms to generalize or specialize over time, which has produced a distinct genre, textbook section on false friends,