THE WORDS OF « LAÏCITE » MORPHOLOGY AND SEMANTICS The treatment of the words derived from the root « laïc- » (lay) given by French dictionaries from the 17th to the 20th century will be examined. The neologisms which appeared until the 19th с all belong to the religious register. Since the end of the 19th с the whole lexical family has been remodelled by sociopolitical meanings linked with the neologism « laïcité ».