-The crayfish is an interesting element of cultural history in many regions where this animal plays an important role through its exploitation by humans. The present study provides comprehensive insight into the relationship between humans and crayfish within the Central European regions of Bohemia and Moravia, collectively recognized as the Czech cultural space. The study combines data obtained from Czech and Latin historical literature; archival juristic documents and codes of law; old cooking and fishing journals, books, and textbooks; digitized materials available on the internet; and specialized and scientific publications. Human exploitation of crayfish within the evaluated region has been continuous from prehistory to the present and is thus the oldest in all of Europe. Important moments are displayed on timeline. Key-words:Freshwater invertebrate / exploitation / history / aquaculture / Czech Republic Résumé -L'écrevisse dans l'espace culturel tchèque : la relation la plus longue documentée entre les humains et les écrevisses en Europe. L'écrevisse est un élément intéressant de l'histoire culturelle dans de nombreuses régions où cet animal joue un rôle important grâce à son exploitation par les humains. La présente étude offre un aperçu complet de la relation entre les humains et les écrevisses dans les régions d'Europe centrale de Bohême et de Moravie, collectivement reconnues comme l'espace culturel tchèque. L'étude combine des données obtenues à partir de la litté-rature tchèque et historique latine ; de documents d'archives juridiques et de codes de la loi ; de vieux journaux, livres et manuels de cuisine et de pêche ; de documents numérisés disponibles sur l'Internet ; et de publications spécialisées et scientifiques. L'exploitation humaine des écrevisses dans la région étudiée a été continue depuis la préhistoire jusqu'à aujourd'hui et est ainsi la plus ancienne de toute l'Europe. Les moments importants sont affichés sur un tableau chronologique. Mots-clés :Invertébrés d'eau douce / exploitation / histoire / aquaculture / République Tchèque

The transformation of meteorology into a modern science raised needs for collections of scientific term definitions (glossaries) and of foreign language equivalents (dictionaries). The Meteorological Glossary (United Kingdom) and the “Lexique météorologique” (France) were the only meteorological glossaries issued separately until World War II. In 1959, a dozen of such works existed, half of which were due to individuals and the other half due to collective efforts, including the comprehensive Glossary of Meteorology (USA) and the provisional version of International Meteorological Vocabulary. Collective authorship has been shown to be more efficient and generally prevailed in recent decades.Regarding dictionaries, the language in which the terms are sorted tells a lot about the purpose of a dictionary. In the 1930s, the British, French and German multilingual dictionaries were ordered alphabetically in their languages which suggests that the dictionaries were intended mainly for foreign scholars. Since World War II, bilingual dictionaries have originated in many countries, with the terms usually being ordered in foreign languages, which is more useful for domestic scholars. Dictionaries continued to be compiled subsequently because the International Meteorological Vocabulary remained limited to English, French, Russian and Spanish.Since 2000, some meteorological glossaries and dictionaries have obtained electronic versions because such versions enable them to be kept up-to-date and allow many practical functionalities, including full-text searches, links among terms and the thematic filtering of terms. While the diversity of meteorological glossaries will probably remain in the future, a truly international meteorological dictionary could be created by connecting national databases.

The article is dedicated to meaning variations and transformations in the terms meteorology and meteor from antiquity to the present. It is argued that the use of the word meteor as a noun denoting a specific meteorological phenomenon only became established in the Renaissance, as the Greek adjective μετέωρος ‘raised, aloft’ in the substantivized neuter form was originally used in the plural to denote objects in the high in a very general way and in the singular to denote an area, not an object. In the Middle Ages, in contrast, it was the Latin terms impressio or passio that were generally employed to denote meteorological phenomena. An emphasis is also placed on how the term meteorology was problematic in a way from the very beginning, rather than only today, when the term meteor has become more astronomical than meteorological in its first meaning, and efforts have been made to replace the name of the science with completely different terms.