European models for the Croatian language handbooks in the 18th century Until the 19th century Croatian language handbooks, namely grammars, dictionaries and ortography books, were mostly bilingual and multilingual. Only at the begining of the 19th century was the first grammar of Croatian written in Croatian published, and in the second half of the same century the first monolingual dictionary – Academy’s Dictionary was published. The origin of this is not in the language itself. When writing these multilanguage handbooks, the authors followed domestic predecessors, as well as foreign. This work is an attempt to reveal those foreign language models that Croatian linguists in the 18th century followed and on the example of one metalexicographic theme – usage labels – to show development of Croatian 18th century lexicography within the European lexicography.