🚀 go-pugleaf

I have a question.  I finally managed to find a French dictionary 
in a store over here-- not a French-English dictionary, but a 
French-French dictionary, words and their meanings.  I was surprised to 
find <<etang>> defined as:

etendue d'eau moins vaste et moins profunde qu'un lac

(yes, I realize that the initial 'e's in etang and etendue have accents 
over them...)

... "extent of water smaller and less deep than a lake"

very much like the definition of "pond" in English.

Anyway, my question is how to explain "Etang de Berre", "Etang de Vaccares", 
et tout les autres etangs grandes de Languedoc??  These are actually much
larger than typical lakes in France, so they would seem to contradict the
definitions.

So...
Is the above dictionary definition "wrong"?
or
Are the coastal etangs of the south exceptions that are too unusual to be 
mentioned in a small, standard dictionary?
or
Are there two kinds of water body that are called "etang" in French, the 
small pond-like ones and the large lagoon-like ones?
or
Are the Langeguedoc etangs wrongly named?  
(If so, I can imagine a picture of "Etang de Vaccares" with a sign, "Ce 
n'est pas un etang", homage a Rene Magritte...)

David Mark
dmark@geog.buffalo.edu