Breal, Michel Jules Alfred (1832–1915)

French philologist. He led the development of the comparative-historical study of language in France. In 1866 he became the first professor of comparative grammar at the College de France, where his influence spread to Arsene Darmesteter (1846–88) and Ferdinand de Saussure among others. He popularized the term semantics through his Essai de Semantique 1897 (English translation published as Semantics 1964), a classic work in the study of meaning change. He was born in Rhenish, Bavaria.