The knowledge we have of the French word "hors" is limited to the work of lexicographers, who attempt to list all the meanings it can have. Our study shows that "hors" can certainly be identified as a preposition ("hors les murs" - "outside the walls"), but it can also be identified as a word "formant" ("un hors-d'œuvre"), a locution ("Il est hors jeu" - "He is offside"), an adverb ("Une fois hors, il sera repris par la brigade" - "Once outside, he will be recaptured by the squad") or a prepositional phrase ("On se jeta hors des lits" - "We burst out of the beds"). Progresses concerning the semantic identity of this expression were made thanks to a formal analysis (distributional and syntactic). Thus, "hors" includes a temporal meaning that indicates an ending state. It reveals a resulting state which succeeds to a presupposed initial state.