Originally Russian ancient words. Epic words and expressions

• Wolf ticket (wolf passport)
  In the 19th century, the name of a document that blocked access to the civil service, educational institution, etc. Today, the phraseological unit is used to mean a sharply negative characteristic of someone’s work.
  The origin of this turnover is usually explained by the fact that the person who received such a document was not allowed to live in one place for more than 2-3 days and had to wander like a wolf.
  In addition, in many combinations, wolf means “abnormal, inhuman, bestial,” which strengthens the contrast between the holder of the wolf card and other “normal” people.
• Lies like a gray gelding
  There are several options for the origin of phraseological units.
  1. The word gelding comes from the Mongolian morin "horse". In historical monuments, the horse siv and gelding siv are very typical; the adjective sivy “light gray, gray-haired” shows the old age of the animal. The verb to lie had a different meaning in the past - “to talk nonsense, talk idle talk; chatter.” The gray gelding here is a stallion that has turned gray from long work, and figuratively - a man who is already talking from old age and talking annoying nonsense.
  2. Gelding is a stallion, gray is old. The expression is explained by the usual boasting of old people about their strength, as if still preserved, like that of the young.
  3. The turnover is associated with the attitude towards the gray horse as a stupid creature. Russian peasants avoided, for example, laying the first furrow on a gray gelding, because he was “lying” - he was wrong, laying it incorrectly.
• Give oak- die
  The phrase is associated with the verb zudubet - “to cool down, lose sensitivity, become hard.” An oak coffin has always been a sign of special honor for the deceased. Peter I introduced a tax on oak coffins as a luxury item.
• Alive, smoking room!
  The origin of the expression is associated with the game "Smoking Room", popular in the 18th century in Russia at gatherings on winter evenings. The players sat in a circle and passed a burning torch to each other, saying “Alive, alive, Smoking Room, not dead, thin legs, short soul...”. The loser was the one whose torch went out and began to smoke or smoke. Later this game was replaced by "Burn, burn clearly so that it does not go out."
• Nick down
  In the old days, almost the entire population in Russian villages was illiterate. To record the bread handed over to the landowner, the work performed, etc., so-called tags were used - wooden sticks up to a fathom long (2 meters), on which notches were made with a knife. The tags were split into two parts so that the marks were on both: one remained with the employer, the other with the performer. The calculation was made based on the number of notches. Hence the expression “notch on the nose,” meaning: remember well, take into account for the future.
• Play spillikins
  In the old days, the game of “spillikins” was common in Rus'. It consisted of using a small hook to pull out, without touching the others, one of the other piles of all the spillikins - all kinds of small toy things: hatchets, glasses, baskets, barrels. This is how not only children, but also adults spent time on long winter evenings.
  Over time, the expression “playing spillikins” began to mean an empty pastime.
• Latem cabbage soup to slurp
  Lapti - wicker shoes made of bast (the subcortical layer of linden trees), covering only the feet - in Rus' were the only affordable footwear for poor peasants, and shchi - a type of cabbage soup - was their simplest and favorite food. Depending on the wealth of the family and the time of year, cabbage soup could be either green, that is, with sorrel, or sour - made from sauerkraut, with meat, or lean - without meat, which was eaten during fasting or in cases of extreme poverty.
  About a person who could not earn enough to buy boots and more refined food, they said that he “slurps on cabbage soup,” that is, he lives in terrible poverty and ignorance.
• Fawn
  The word “fawn” comes from the German phrase “Ich liebe sie” (I love you). Seeing the insincerity in the frequent repetition of this “swan”, Russian people wittily formed from these German words the Russian word “fawn” - it means to curry favor, to flatter someone, to achieve someone’s favor or favor with flattery.
• Fishing in troubled waters
  Stunning has long been one of the prohibited methods of catching fish, especially during spawning. There is a well-known fable by the ancient Greek poet Aesop about a fisherman who muddied the water around his nets, driving blinded fish into them. Then the expression went beyond fishing and acquired a broader meaning - to take advantage of an unclear situation.
  There is also a well-known proverb: “Before you catch a fish, you [need] to muddy the waters,” that is, “deliberately create confusion for profit.”
• Small fry
  The expression came from peasant everyday life. In the Russian northern lands, a plow is a peasant community of 3 to 60 households. And small fry called a very poor community, and then its poor inhabitants. Later, officials occupying a low position in the government structure also began to be called small fry.
• The thief's hat is on fire
  The expression goes back to an old joke about how a thief was found in the market.
  After futile attempts to find the thief, people turned to the sorcerer for help; he shouted loudly: “Look! The thief’s hat is on fire!” And suddenly everyone saw how a man grabbed his hat. So the thief was discovered and convicted.
• Lather your head
  In the old days, a tsarist soldier served indefinitely - until death or complete disability. Since 1793, a 25-year period of military service was introduced. The landowner had the right to give his serfs as soldiers for misconduct. Since recruits (recruits) had their hair shaved off and were referred to as “shaved”, “shaved their forehead”, “soaped their head”, the expression “I’ll soap my head” became synonymous with threat in the mouths of the rulers. In a figurative sense, “soap your head” means: to give a severe reprimand, to strongly scold.
• Neither fish nor fowl
  In Western and Central Europe of the 16th century, a new movement appeared in Christianity - Protestantism (lat. “to protest, object”). Protestants, unlike Catholics, opposed the Pope, denied holy angels and monasticism, arguing that each person himself can turn to God. Their rituals were simple and inexpensive. There was a bitter struggle between Catholics and Protestants. Some of them, in accordance with Christian commandments, ate modest meat, others preferred lean fish. If a person did not join any movement, then he was contemptuously called “neither fish nor fowl.” Over time, they began to talk about a person who does not have a clearly defined position in life, who is not capable of active, independent actions.
• There is no place to put samples- disapprovingly about a depraved woman.
  An expression based on a comparison with a golden thing passing from one owner to another. Each new owner demanded that the product be checked by a jeweler and tested. When the product had been in many hands, there was no longer any room left for testing.
• If we don't wash, we'll ride
  Before the invention of electricity, a heavy cast iron iron was heated over a fire and, until it cooled down, they ironed clothes with it. But this process was difficult and required a certain skill, so the linen was often “rolled”. To do this, washed and almost dried laundry was fixed on a special rolling pin - a round piece of wood similar to the one used to roll out dough nowadays. Then, using a ruble - a curved corrugated board with a handle - the rolling pin, along with the laundry wound onto it, was rolled along a wide flat board. At the same time, the fabric was stretched and straightened. Professional laundresses knew that well-rolled linen has a fresher appearance, even if the washing was not entirely successful.
  This is how the expression “by washing, by rolling” appeared, that is, to achieve results in more than one way.
• Break a leg- wishing good luck in something.
  The expression was originally used as a “spell” designed to deceive evil spirits (this expression was used to admonish those going on a hunt; it was believed that with a direct wish for good luck one could “jinx” the prey).
  Answer "To hell!" should have further protected the hunter. To hell - this is not an expletive like “Go to hell!”, but a request to go to hell and tell him about it (so that the hunter does not get any fluff or feather). Then the unclean one will do the opposite, and what is needed will happen: the hunter will return “with down and feathers,” that is, with prey.
• Let's beat swords into ploughshares
  The expression goes back to the Old Testament, where it is said that “the time will come when the nations will beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight.”
  In the Old Church Slavonic language, “ploughshare” is a tool for cultivating land, something like a plow. The dream of establishing universal peace is figuratively expressed in the sculpture of the Soviet sculptor E.V. Vuchetich, depicting a blacksmith forging a sword into a plow, which is installed in front of the UN building in New York.
• Goof
  Prosak is a drum with teeth in a machine, with the help of which wool was carded. Getting into trouble meant being maimed and losing an arm. To get into trouble is to get into trouble, into an awkward position.
• Knock you down
  Confuse, confuse.
  Pantalik is a distorted version of Pantelik, a mountain in Attica (Greece) with a stalactite cave and grottoes in which it was easy to get lost.
• Straw Widow
  Among the Russians, Germans and a number of other peoples, a bundle of straw served as a symbol of a concluded agreement: marriage or purchase and sale. To break the straw meant to break the contract, to separate. There was also a custom of making the newlyweds’ bed on sheaves of rye. Wedding wreaths were also woven from straw flowers. A wreath (from the Sanskrit word “vene” - “bundle”, meaning a bundle of hair) was a symbol of marriage.
  If the husband left somewhere for a long time, they said that the woman was left with nothing but straw, which is how the expression “straw widow” appeared.
• Dance from the stove
  The expression became popular thanks to the novel by the 19th century Russian writer V.A. Sleptsov "A Good Man". The main character of the novel, "non-employee nobleman" Sergei Terebenev, returns to Russia after long wanderings around Europe. He remembers how he was taught to dance as a child. Seryozha started all his movements from the stove, and if he made a mistake, the teacher told him: “Well, go to the stove, start over.” Terebenev realized that his life circle had closed: he started from the village, then Moscow, Europe, and, having reached the edge, he again returned to the village, to the stove.
• Grated kalach
  In Rus', kalach is wheat bread in the shape of a castle with a bow. Grated kalach was baked from hard kalach dough, which was kneaded and grated for a long time. This is where the proverb “Don’t grate, don’t crush, don’t make kalach” came from, which in a figurative sense means: “troubles teach a person.” And the words “grated kalach” have become popular - this is what they say about an experienced person who has seen a lot, who has “rubbed between people” a lot.
• Pull the gimp
  Gimp is a very thin, flattened, twisted gold or silver wire used for embroidery. Making gimp consists of pulling it out. This work, done manually, is tedious, monotonous and time-consuming. Therefore, the expression “pull the gimp” (or “spread the gimp”) in a figurative sense began to mean: to do something monotonous, tedious, causing an annoying loss of time.
• In the middle of nowhere
  In ancient times, clearings in dense forests were called kuligs. The pagans considered them bewitched. Later, people settled deep into the forest, looked for swarms, and settled there with their whole family. This is where the expression comes from: in the middle of nowhere, that is, very far away.
• Too
  In Slavic mythology, Chur or Shchur is the ancestor, ancestor, god of the hearth - the brownie.
  Initially, “chur” meant: limit, border.
  Hence the exclamation: “chur,” meaning a prohibition to touch something, to cross some line, beyond some limit (in spells against “evil spirits,” in games, etc.), a requirement to comply with some condition , agreement
  From the word “too much” the word “too much” was born, meaning: to go beyond “too much”, to go beyond the limit. “Too much” means too much, too much, too much.
• Sherochka with a masherochka
  Until the 18th century, women were educated at home. In 1764, the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens was opened in St. Petersburg at the Resurrection Smolny Convent. The daughters of nobles studied there from the ages of 6 to 18. The subjects of study were the law of God, the French language, arithmetic, drawing, history, geography, literature, dancing, music, various types of home economics, as well as subjects of “secular manners”. The usual address of college girls to each other was the French ma chere. From these French words came the Russian words “sherochka” and “masherochka”, which are currently used to name a couple consisting of two women.
• Walk trump
  In ancient Rus', boyars, unlike commoners, sewed a collar embroidered with silver, gold and pearls, which was called a trump card, to the collar of their ceremonial caftan. The trump card stuck out impressively, giving the boyars a proud posture. Walking as a trump means walking is important, but trumping means showing off something.

Archaisms are words that, due to the emergence of new words, have fallen out of use. But their synonyms exist in modern Russian. Eg:
the right hand is the right hand, the cheeks are the cheeks, the ribs are the shoulders, the loins are the lower back, and so on.

But it is worth noting that archaisms may still differ from modern synonymous words. These differences can be in the morphemic composition (fisherman - fisherman, friendship - friendship), in their lexical meaning (belly - life, guest - merchant), in grammatical design (at the ball - at the ball, perform - perform) and phonetic features ( mirror - mirror, gishpansky - Spanish). Many words are completely outdated, but they still have modern synonyms. For example: destruction - death or harm, hope - hope and firmly believe, so that - so that. And in order to avoid possible mistakes in the interpretation of these words, when working with works of art, it is strongly recommended to use a dictionary of outdated words and dialect phrases, or an explanatory dictionary.

Historicisms are words that denote phenomena or objects that have completely disappeared or ceased to exist as a result of the further development of society.
Many words that denoted various household items of our ancestors, phenomena and things that were in one way or another connected with the economy of the past, the old culture, and the socio-political system that once existed became historicisms. Many historicisms are found among words that are one way or another connected with military topics.

Eg:
Redoubt, chain mail, visor, arquebus and so on.
Most of the outdated words refer to items of clothing and household items: prosak, svetets, endova, camisole, armyak.

Also, historicisms include words that denote titles, professions, positions, classes that once existed in Rus': tsar, lackey, boyar, steward, stableman, barge hauler, tinker, and so on. Types of production activities such as horse-drawn horses and manufacturing. Phenomena of patriarchal life: procurement, rent, corvee and others. Disappeared technologies such as mead making and tinning.

Words that arose during the Soviet era also became historicisms. These include words such as: food detachment, NEP, Makhnovets, educational program, Budenovets and many others.

Sometimes it can be very difficult to distinguish between archaisms and historicisms. This is due both to the revival of the cultural traditions of Rus', and to the frequent use of these words in proverbs and sayings, as well as other works of folk art. Such words include words denoting measures of length or measurements of weight, naming Christian and religious holidays, and so on and so forth.

Abiye - immediately, since, when.
Anyhow - so that, in order.
Lamb - lamb, lamb.
Az is the pronoun “I” or the name of the first letter of the alphabet.
Az, buki, vedi - the names of the first letters of the Slavic alphabet.
Aki - as, since, like, as if, as if.
Altyn is an ancient silver coin in denomination of three kopecks.
Hungry - from the word "hungry" - greedily want.
An, even - if, meanwhile, after all.
Anbar (barn) is a building for storing bread or goods.
Araka - wheat vodka
Arapchik - Dutch chervonets.
Argamak - an eastern thoroughbred horse, racer: at a wedding - a horse under saddle, not in harness
Armyak is men's outerwear made of cloth or woolen fabric.
Arshin is a Russian measure of length equal to 0.71 m; ruler, a bar of such length for measuring.
If - if, if, when.

Babka - four sheaves of oats - ears up, covered with a fifth - ears down - from the rain.
Badog - batog, stick, staff, whip.
Bazheny - beloved, from the word “bazhat” - to love, to desire, to have an inclination.
To bash - to roar, scream.
Barber - barber, hairdresser.
Stillage is the grounds, the remains from the distillation of grain wine, used for fattening livestock.
Corvée is the free forced labor of serfs who worked with their equipment on the farm of the landowner, landowner. In addition, the corvée peasants paid the landowner various taxes in kind, supplying him with hay, oats, firewood, butter, poultry, etc. For this, the landowner allocated part of the land to the peasants and allowed them to cultivate it. The corvée was 3-4, and sometimes even 6 days per day. week. The decree of Paul I (1797) on three-day corvee was of a recommendatory nature and in most cases was ignored by landowners.
Basque - beautiful, elegant.
Basok is a short form of the word "basque" - beautiful, comely, decorated.
Bastion is an earthen or stone fortification that forms a ledge on the rampart.
Basurman is a hostile and unkind name for a Mohammedan, as well as for a non-religious person in general, a foreigner.
Batalya (battle) - battle, battle.
Bahar is a talker, a talker.
To babble - to talk, chat, converse.
To be vigilant is to take care; be on guard, vigilant.
Fluency is speed.
Timelessness is a misfortune, a difficult test, time.
A steelyard is a hand scale with an unequal lever and a moving fulcrum.
Unusual - not knowing customs, everyday rules, decency.
Bela Mozhaiskaya - an ancient Russian variety of bulk apples
Belmes (Tatar “belmes”) - you don’t understand anything, you don’t understand at all.
Berdo is an accessory of the weaving mill.
Take care - be careful.
Pregnancy is a burden, heaviness, burden; armful, as much as you can hug with your hands.
Incessantly - unconditionally, undoubtedly, incessantly.
Shameless - shameless.
Becheva - a strong rope, rope; towline - the movement of a vessel with a towline, which was pulled along the shore by people or horses.
Bechet is a ruby ​​type gemstone
A tag is a stick or board on which signs and notes are placed with notches or paint.
Biryuk is a beast, a bear.
Broken loaves - dough for rolls whipped with cream
To hit with the forehead is to bow low; ask for something; to offer a gift, accompanying the offering with a request.
To bet is to bet on winning.
Annunciation is a Christian holiday in honor of the Virgin Mary (March 25, O.S.).
Blagoy - kind, good.
Bo - for, because.
Bobyl is a lonely, homeless, poor peasant.
Boden is a butter, a spur on the legs of a rooster.
Bozhedom is a cemetery watchman, gravedigger, caretaker, head of a home for the elderly and disabled.
Blockhead - statue, idol, block of wood.
Boris and Gleb are Christian saints, whose day was celebrated on May 2 according to Art. Art.
Bortnik is a person engaged in forest beekeeping (from the word “bort” - a hollow tree in which bees nest).
Botalo - bell, bell tongue, beat.
A bochag is a deep puddle, pothole, pit, filled with water.
Hawkmoth is a drunkard.
Brany - patterned (about fabric).
Bratina - a small bowl, goblet with a spherical body, used for drinking in a circle
Brother - brother, a vessel for beer.
Brashno - food, dish, dish, edible.
Breden, nonsense - a small seine that two people use to catch fish while wading.
Will - if, if, when, if.
Buerak is a dry ravine.
Buza is rock salt that was given to animals.
A mace is a sign of superior authority, also a weapon (club) or knob.
Alyssum is a box, a small box made of birch bark.
Bouchenye - from the word “boil” - soak, whiten canvases.
Buyava, buyovo - cemetery, grave.
Bylitsa is a blade of grass, a stalk of grass.
Bylichka is a story about evil spirits, the authenticity of which is not doubted.

Vadit - to lure, attract, accustom.
It's important - it's hard, it's hard.
Shafts are waves.
Vandysh - smelt, dried fish like ruff
Vargan (“on the mound, on the vargan”) - perhaps from “worg” - a clearing overgrown with tall grass; mowed, open place in the forest.
Varyukha, Varvara - a Christian saint, whose day was celebrated on December 4 according to Art. Art.
A sergeant major is a senior non-commissioned officer in a cavalry squadron.
Vashchet is your grace.
Introduction - introduction, Christian holiday in honor of the Virgin Mary (November 21, O.S.).
Suddenly - again, again.
Vedrina - from the word “bucket” - clear, warm, dry weather (not winter).
Vedro - clear, calm weather.
Politeness - good manners, courtesy, politeness.
Vekoshniki - pies seasoned with meat and fish leftovers.
Maundy Thursday is the Thursday in the last week of Lent (before Easter).
Veres - juniper.
Veretye ​​is a coarse hemp fabric.
Vereya (belts, rope, vereyushka) - a pole on which the gate is hung; jamb at the door, gate.
A versten is a verst.
A spit is a rod on which meat is fried by turning it over the fire.
Nativity scene - cave; hangout; a large box with puppets controlled from below through slits in the floor of the box, in which performances on the theme of the Nativity of Christ were performed.
A top is a fishing implement made of twigs.
Vershnik - horseman; riding ahead on horseback.
Veselko is a stirrer.
Vechka is a copper pan.
Evening - last night, yesterday.
Hanged (mushrooms, meat, etc.) - dried.
Viklina - tops.
Guilt is a reason, a reason.
Vitsa, vichka - twig, twig, whip.
Vlasno - exactly, actually.
The driver is the leader of the bear.
Voight is a foreman in a rural district, an elected elder.
Wave is wool.
Vologa - meat broth, any fatty liquid food.
Portage - from the word “drag”, a path on a watershed along which cargo and boats are dragged.
Volosnik is a women's headdress, a net made of gold or silver thread with trim (usually not festive, like kika, but everyday), a type of cap.
Volotki - stems, straws, blades of grass; the upper part of the sheaf with ears.
Vorovina - shoe polish, also rope, lasso.
Voroguha, vorogusha - sorceress, fortune teller, evildoer.
Voronets is a beam in a hut that serves as a shelf.
Voronogray - fortune telling by the cries of a raven; a book describing such signs.
Votchina is the family estate of the landowner, passed on by inheritance.
In vain - in vain.
The enemy is the devil, the demon.
A temporary worker is a person who has achieved power and a high position in the state thanks to personal closeness to the monarch.
A temporary worker is a person who has achieved a high position thanks to chance.
Vskaya - in vain, in vain, in vain.
In pursuit - after.
In vain - in vain, in vain.
As a stranger - from the outside, without being in a close relationship.
Elected - elected by voting.
I will take it out - always, at all times, incessantly.
Vyray (viriy, iriy) - a wondrous, promised, warm side, somewhere far away by the sea, accessible only to birds and snakes.
Howl - meal time, also a share of food, part of a meal.
Vyalitsa - blizzard.
Greater - greater, higher.

Gai - oak grove, grove, small deciduous forest.
Galun - gold or silver tinsel braid.
Garrison - military units located in a city or fortress.
Garchik - pot, krinka.
Gattki, gat - a flooring made of logs or brushwood on a swampy place. To shit - to spread dirt.
Gashnik - belt, belt, lace for tying pants.
Guard - selected privileged troops; military units serving as guards for sovereigns or military leaders.
Gehenna is hell.
General - a military rank of the first, second, third or fourth class according to the Table of Ranks.
Lieutenant General is a general rank of the third class, which under Catherine II corresponded to the rank of lieutenant general according to Peter the Great's Table of Ranks.
George - Christian saint George the Victorious; Yegory-Spring (April 23) and Yegoryev (Yuryev) Day (November 26, O.S.) are holidays in his honor.
To perish - to perish, to disappear.
Glazetovy - sewn from glazet (a type of brocade with gold and silver patterns woven on it).
Glezno - shin, ankle.
Goveyno - fast (Mrs. Goveyno - Assumption Fast, etc.)
To fast is to fast, to abstain from food.
Speaking is speech.
Gogol is a bird from the diving duck breed.
Godina - good clear weather, a bucket.
Suitable - to marvel, admire, stare; stare, stare; mock, ridicule.
Years go by - years live, from the word “godovat” - live.
Golbchik - golbchik, a fence in the form of a closet in a hut between the stove and the floors, a stove with steps for access to the stove and floors, and with a hole in the underground.
To be golden, to be golden - to talk noisily, shout, swear.
Golik is a broom without leaves.
Golitsy - leather mittens without wool lining.
Dutch - chervonets struck at the St. Petersburg Mint.
Golomya is the open sea.
Gol - ragamuffins, naked people, beggars.
Grief is upward.
Gorka is a graveyard, a place where church ministers lived.
Gorlatnaya hat - sewn from very thin fur taken from the neck of an animal; The shape is a tall, straight cap with a crown that flares upward.
An upper room is a room usually located on the top floor of a house.
The upper room is the clean half of the hut.
Fever, delirium tremens; fever is a serious illness with intense fever and chills; delirium tremens - here: a state of painful delirium with high fever or temporary insanity.
Gostika - guest.
Letter - writing; an official document, a decree, giving someone the right to do something.
Hryvnia - ten-kopeck piece; in Ancient Rus', the monetary unit was a silver or gold bar weighing about a pound.
Grosh is an ancient coin worth two kopecks.
Grumant is the old Russian name for the Spitsbergen archipelago, discovered by our Pomors in the 15th century.
Grun, gruna - a quiet horse trot.
A bed is a pole, a pole, suspended or attached lying down, a crossbar, a perch in a hut, from wall to wall.
Guba - bay, backwater.
Governor is the ruler of a province.
Spongy cheeses are a curd mass whipped with sour cream.
Gudok is a three-string violin without grooves on the sides of the body. Threshing floor - room, barn for compressed bread; threshing area.
The tug is a loop that holds the shafts and the arc together.
Guzhi with garlic - boiled rolls.
Threshing floor - a place for storing bread in sheaves and threshing, a covered threshing floor.
Gunya, gunka - old, tattered clothes.

Yes, recently.
The janitor is the owner of the inn.
Brother-in-law is the husband's brother.
Maiden's room - a room in manor houses where serf courtyard girls lived and worked.
Devyatina - a period of nine days.
Deja - dough dough, kneading bowl; a tub in which bread dough is kneaded.
Actors are actors.
Business - division.
Delenka is a woman constantly busy with work and needlework.
Dennitsa - morning dawn.
Denga is an ancient coin in denomination of two half or half a kopeck; money, capital, wealth.
Gum, right hand - right, right hand.
Ten - ten times.
Divyy - wild.
An officer's diploma is a certificate of merit for an officer's rank.
Dmitry's Saturday is the day of remembrance of the dead (between October 18 and 26), established by Dmitry Donskoy in 1380 after the Battle of Kulikovo.
Fundamental disease - diseases of internal organs, bone aches, hernia.
Today - now, now, today.
Dobrohot - well-wisher, patron.
Dominates - follows, should, must, decently.
To suffice is to be sufficient.
Argument - denunciation, denunciation, complaint.
Enough, enough - as much as you want, as much as you need, enough.
Boredom is an annoying request, also a boring, annoying thing.
To top up is to overcome.
Dolon - palm.
Share - plot, share, allotment, lot; fate, fate, fate.
Domovina is a coffin.
Dondezhe - until then.
The bottom is a board on which the spinner sits and into which the comb and tow are inserted.
To correct - to demand filing, debt.
Dor is rough shingles.
The roads are very fine oriental silk fabric.
Dosyulny - old, former.
Dokha - a fur coat with fur inside and outside.
A dragoon is a warrior of cavalry units operating both on horseback and on foot.
Dranitsa are thin planks chipped from wood.
Gruss is coarse sand that is used when washing unpainted floors, walls, and benches.
Drolya - dear, dear, beloved.
A friend is a wedding manager invited by the groom.
Oak - young oak, oak, shelf, staff, rod, twig.
Dubnik is an oak bark necessary for various household works, including tanning leather.
Smoky furs are bags made from steamed skins (and therefore especially soft).
Smokey smell.
Drawbar - a single shaft attached to the front axle for turning the cart when harnessed in pairs.
The sexton is the sexton's wife.
An uncle is a servant assigned to supervise a boy in noble families.

Eudokei - Christian St. Evdokia, whose day was celebrated on March 1 according to Art. Art.
When - when.
A one-child is the only son of his parents.
Eat - food.
Hedgehog - which.
Everyday - every day, every day.
Oil is olive oil that was used in church services.
Elen is a deer.
Eliko - how much.
Christmas tree - a fir branch on the roof or above the door of the hut - a sign that there is a tavern in it.
Eloza is a fidget, a weasel, a flatterer.
Elets are different types of shaped cookies.
Endova - a wide vessel with a toe for pouring liquids.
Epancha is an old long and wide cloak or blanket.
Jeremiah - Christian prophet Jeremiah, whose day was celebrated on May 1; Christian Apostle Erma, whose day was celebrated on May 31.
Ernishny - from “ernik”: small, low-growing forest, small birch bush.
Erofeich - bitter wine; vodka infused with herbs.
It snarls across the belly - from the word “yarl” - to swear, to use foul language.
Eating - food, food.
Eating is food.
Nature is nature.
Etchi - yes.

Zhalnik - cemetery, graves, churchyard.
Iron - shackles, chains, shackles.
Pretense - lack of simplicity and naturalness; mannerism.
Lot - lot.
Lives - it happens.
Belly - life, property; soul; livestock
Stomachs - living creatures, prosperity, wealth.
They live - they happen.
Lived - a residential place, premises.
Fat is good, property; a good, free life.
Zhitnik - baked rye or barley bread.
Zhito - any bread in grain or standing; barley (northern), unmilled rye (southern), all spring bread (eastern).
Harvest - harvest, harvesting of grain; strip after squeezed bread.
Zhupan is an ancient half-caftan.
Grumpy - grumpy.
Jalvey, zhelv, zhol - an abscess, a tumor on the body.

Continuation

Contemporaries of A.S. Pushkin, reading his works, perceived all the details of the text. And we, readers of the 21st century, are already missing out on a lot, not understanding, but guessing approximately. Indeed, what is a frock coat, a tavern, a tavern, a dressing gown? Who are the coachman, the yard boy, and your excellency? In each story of Pushkin's cycle there are words that are incomprehensible and unclear in their meaning. But they all designate some objects, phenomena, concepts, positions, titles of a past life. These words have fallen out of modern use. Therefore, their specific meaning remains unclear and incomprehensible to the modern reader. This explains the choice of the topic of my research, dedicated to outdated words that have passed from the modern language in Belkin’s Tales.

The life of a language is clearly manifested in constant changes in the composition of words and their meanings. And the very history of the people and the state is imprinted in the fate of individual words. The vocabulary of the Russian language contains many words that are rarely used in real speech, but are known to us from classical literary works, history textbooks and stories about the past.

Obsolete words can be divided into two groups: 1) historicisms; 2) archaisms.

Historicisms (from the Greek historia - a story about past events) are words denoting the names of such objects and phenomena that ceased to exist as a result of the development of society. Many words that name objects of a bygone way of life, old culture, things and phenomena associated with the economy of the past, old socio-political relations have become historicisms. Thus, there are many historicisms among words related to military themes: chain mail, arquebus, visor, redoubt. Many words denoting ranks, classes, positions, and professions of old Russia are historicisms: tsar, boyar, equestrian, footman, steward, zemstvo, serf, landowner, constable, ofenya, farrier, tinker, sawyer, lamplighter, barge hauler; phenomena of patriarchal life: corvée, quitrent, cuts, procurement; types of production activities: manufactory, horse-drawn carriage; types of disappeared technologies: tinning, mead making.

Archaisms (from the Greek archaios - ancient) are words that have fallen out of use due to their replacement with new ones, for example: cheeks - cheeks, loins - lower back, right hand - right hand, tuga - sadness, verses - poems, ramen - shoulders. All of them have synonyms in modern Russian.

Archaisms may differ from the modern synonymous word in different ways: a different lexical meaning (guest - merchant, belly - life), a different grammatical design (perform - perform, at the ball - at the ball), a different morphemic composition (friendship - friendship, fisherman - fisherman ), other phonetic features (Gishpansky - Spanish, mirror - mirror). Some words are completely outdated, but have modern synonyms: so that - so that, destruction - destruction, harm, hope - hope and firmly believe. Archaisms and historicisms are used in fiction to recreate the historical situation in the country and convey the national and cultural traditions of the Russian people.

DICTIONARY OF OBSOLETE WORDS

From the publisher

Corvee is free forced labor of a dependent peasant, “Ivan Petrovich was forced to abolish corvee and establish a master who works with his own equipment on the farm. moderate quitrent"

Quirk is an annual collection of money and food from serfs by landowners.

The housekeeper is a servant in the landowner's house, who was entrusted with the keys to the “he entrusted the management of the village to his old housekeeper, who acquired his storage of food supplies. trust in the art of storytelling. »

Second major - military rank of the 8th class in 1741-1797. “His late father, Second Major Pyotr Ivanovich Belkin, was married to the girl Pelageya Gavrilovna from the Trafilin family. »

"Shot"

A banker is a player holding a bank in card games. “The officer went out, saying that he was ready to answer for the offense, as Mr. Banker pleases.”

“The game continued for several more minutes; but feeling that the owner was

Vacancy - an unfilled position; job title. There was no time for the game, we fell behind one by one and scattered to our apartments, talking about the imminent vacancy. »

Galun is a gold braid or silver (ribbon) that was sewn on “Silvio stood up and took out of the cardboard a red cap with a gold tassel, like a uniform. galloon"

“Throw the bank” (special). - reception of a card game. “He refused for a long time, because he almost never played; Finally he ordered the cards to be brought, poured fifty chervonets onto the table and sat down to throw. »

Hussar - a military man from light cavalry units who wore a Hungarian uniform. “He once served in the hussars, and even happily.”

A footman is a servant for masters, as well as in a restaurant, hotel, etc. “The footman led me into the count’s office, and he himself went to report on me. »

A riding arena is a platform or special building for training horses and the life of an army officer is known. In the morning training, playpen; lunch at horse riding lessons. a regimental commander or in a Jewish tavern; in the evening punch and cards.

Punter - in gambling card games: playing against the bank, i.e. “If the punter happened to be shortchanged, then he immediately paid them extra by making large bets; one who bets in a gambling card game. enough, or wrote down too much. »

Lieutenant - an officer rank higher than a second lieutenant and lower than a non-commissioned officer - an officer - a junior command rank in the tsarist army - staff captain. Russia, in some modern foreign armies; person holding this title.

This (this, this) place. - this, this, this. “With these words he hurriedly left”

Excellency - titles of princes and counts (from places: yours, his, hers, theirs) “Oh,” I noted, “in that case, I bet that your excellency will not hit the map even at twenty paces: the pistol requires daily exercise .

Frock coat and frock coat - long men's double-breasted clothing at the waist with a turn-down "he walked forever, in a worn black frock coat"

or a stand-up collar.

Chervonets is the general name for foreign gold coins in pre-Petrine era “For a long time he refused, because he almost never played; finally ordered

Rus'. to hand over the cards, poured fifty chervonets onto the table and sat down to throw. »

Chandal - candlestick “The officer, inflamed by the wine, the game and the laughter of his comrades, considered himself severely offended and, in a rage, grabbed a copper chandelier from the table and threw it at Silvio, who barely managed to dodge the blow. »

Eterist - in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries: a member of the secret Greek “It is said that Silvius, during the indignation of Alexander Ypsilant, a revolutionary organization that fought for the liberation of the country from led a detachment of Eterists and was killed in battle under Turkish oppression. Skulyanami. »

"Blizzard"

Boston is a card game. “neighbors constantly went to him to eat, drink, and play Boston for five kopecks with his wife”

Versta - an ancient Russian measure “The coachman decided to travel along the river, which was supposed to shorten our route to a length of 1.06 km. " three miles. »

Red tape is delaying a case or resolving an issue. “What was holding him back? Shyness, inseparable from true love, pride or the coquetry of cunning red tape?

Maid - servant to the mistress. “Three men and a maid supported the bride and were only busy

The police captain is the chief of police in the district. “After lunch, land surveyor Shmit appeared in a mustache and spurs and the police captain’s son appeared. »

Kibitka is a covered road carriage. “I turned around, left the church without any obstacles, rushed into the wagon and shouted: “Get off!”

Cornet is the lowest officer rank. “The first person he came to, the retired forty-year-old cornet Dravin, agreed willingly.”

The porch is a covered area in front of the entrance to the church. “The church was open, several sleighs stood outside the fence; people were walking around the porch. »

Signet - homemade seal on a ring or keychain. “Having sealed both letters with a Tula signet, on which were depicted

Signet - a small seal on a ring, a keychain with initials, or two flaming hearts with a decent inscription, she (Marya Gavrilovna)

some other sign. Used to seal letters, threw herself on the bed just before dawn and dozed off. »

sealing wax or wax and served as an indication of the sender.

Ensign is the most junior officer rank. “The subject she chose was a poor army ensign who was on leave in his village.”

Ulan - in the armies of some countries, a soldier, a light cavalry officer, “a boy of about sixteen who recently joined the lancers. »

wielding a spear or saber.

Shlafor - housecoat. “The old people woke up and went into the living room. , Praskovya Petrovna in a dressing gown with cotton wool. »

Grand Patience is laying out a deck of cards according to certain rules. “The old lady was sitting alone in the living room one day, playing grand solitaire.”

A cap is a pointed-shaped headdress, which in the old days was worn by men “Gavrila Gavrilovich in a cap and flannel jacket”

worn at home and often worn at night. ; sleeping cap.

"Undertaker"

Cupid is the god of love in ancient mythology, depicted as a winged “Above the gate there was a sign depicting a portly boy with a bow and arrows. Cupid with an overturned torch in his hand. »

Announce - to notify by ringing a church service. “No one noticed, the guests continued the thread, and were already announcing Vespers when they got up from the table.

Over the knee boots - boots with a wide top. ". the leg bones beat in the big boots, like pestles in mortars. »

Brigadier - in the Russian army of the 18th century. : military rank 5th class (according to the Table of “Tryukhina, brigadier and sergeant Kurilkin vaguely introduced themselves by rank); person who had this rank. his imagination."

The guard is a policeman who carried out guard duty in the booth. “Of the Russian officials there was one watchman”

Vespers is a Christian church service held in the afternoon. ". the guests continued to drink and were already announcing Vespers.”

Gaer is a common jester in folk games, clowning around and making faces in “Is the undertaker a gaer at Christmas time?”

Christmas time;

A ten-kopeck coin is a ten-kopeck coin. “The undertaker gave him a ten-kopeck piece for vodka, got dressed quickly, took a cab and went to Razgulay. »

Drogi - a cart for transporting the dead. “The last belongings of the undertaker Adrian Prokhorov were thrown into the funeral cart”

Kaftan - an old men's long-brimmed outerwear “I will not describe the Russian caftan of Adrian Prokhorov”

Icon, icon case, icon case (from Greek - box, ark) - a special decorated cabinet “Soon order was established; ark with images, cabinet with

(often folded) or glazed shelf for icons. dishes, a table, a sofa and a bed occupied certain corners in the back room.”

A mantle is a wide, long garment in the form of a cloak” “the kitchen and living room housed the owner’s wares: coffins of all colors and all sizes, as well as wardrobes with mourning ribbons, mantles and torches. »

To preach the gospel - to end, to stop preaching the gospel. “You feasted with the German all day, came back drunk, fell into bed, and slept until this hour, when they announced mass.”

Contractor is a person who is obligated under a contract to perform certain work. “But Tryukhina was dying on Razgulay, and Prokhorov was afraid that her heir, despite his promise, would not be too lazy to send for him so far away and would not make a deal with the nearest contractor. »

To rest - 1. To sleep, to fall asleep; “You deigned to sleep, and we didn’t want to wake you.”

2. Transfer. Rest.

Svetlitsa - a bright living room; front room in the house; small “The girls went to their little room. "

bright room at the top of the house.

The ax is an ancient bladed weapon - a large ax with a semicircular blade, and “Yurko again began to walk around her with an ax and in armor with a long homespun handle. »

Sermyaga is a coarse homespun undyed cloth: a caftan is made from this cloth. “Yurko began to walk around her again with an ax and in homespun armor. »

Chukhonets was the name given to Finns and Estonians until 1917. “Of the Russian officials there was one watchman, the Chukhonian Yurko, who knew how

To acquire the special favor of the owner."

"The Station Agent"

The altar is the main elevated eastern part of the church, fenced off “He hastily entered the church: the priest was leaving the altar. »

iconostasis.

Altar - in ancient times among many peoples: a place on which sacrifices were burned and in front of which rituals associated with sacrifice were performed. Used figuratively and in comparison.

An assignation is a paper banknote issued in Russia from 1769 to “. he took them out and unwrapped several five and ten ruble

1849 , in the official language - before the introduction of credit cards; one ruble of crumpled banknotes"

in silver was equal to 3 1/3 rubles in banknotes.

The Prodigal Son is a gospel parable about the rebellious prodigal son who “They depicted the story of the prodigal son. »

he left home, squandered his share of the inheritance, after wanderings he returned with repentance to his father’s house and was forgiven.

High Nobility - according to the Table of Ranks, the title of civil ranks with “Early in the morning he came to his anteroom and asked to report to his eighth to sixth grade, as well as officers from captain to colonel, and to High Nobility”

“Taking off his wet, shaggy hat, letting go of his shawl and pulling off his overcoat,

The visiting hussar, a soldier of the highest cavalry, appeared as a young, slender hussar with a black mustache.”

Drozhki - a light, two-seater, four-wheeled open carriage with short "Suddenly a smart droshky raced in front of him"

drogues instead of springs.

Deacon - a clergyman in the Orthodox Church; the church reader, the sexton extinguished the candles. »

acolyte; He also taught literacy.

An assessor is an elected representative in court to work in some “Yes, but there are few travelers: unless the assessor turns around, he has no time for another institution. dead. »

A tavern is a drinking establishment of one of the lowest categories for sale and “It used to be that he comes from the tavern, and we follow him. »

drinking alcoholic beverages.

A cap is a pointed or oval-shaped headdress. “An old man in a cap and dressing gown lets a young man go”

Lackey is a servant in a house, restaurant, hotel.

The front end of a cart, sleigh, cart; the coachman's seat in the front "the servant jumped onto the beam. »

The porch is a covered area in front of the entrance to the church. “Approaching the church, he saw that the people were already leaving, but Dunya was not there

Neither in the fence, nor on the porch. »

Passengers are a carriage with horses that change at post stations. "traveled on crossroads"

Podorozhnaya - a document giving the right to use post horses; “In five minutes - the bell! and the courier throws him a travel certificate. your travel table. »

To rest - 1. To sleep, to fall asleep; “The military footman, cleaning his boot on the last, announced that the master

2. Transfer. Rest. rests and that he doesn’t receive anyone before eleven o’clock. »

Postmaster - manager of a post office. “the caretaker asked the S*** postmaster to leave for two months”

Passes are the cost of travel on post horses. ". paid runs for two horses. »

Captain - senior chief officer rank in the cavalry “He soon learned that Captain Minsky was in St. Petersburg and lived in

Demutov tavern. »

Skufya, skufiya - 1. A youthful, monochromatic (black, purple, Minsky came out to you in a robe, in a red skufiya. “What do you need purple, etc.) hat for Orthodox priests, monks. 2. Do you need a round?” he asked.

cap, skullcap, skull cap, headdress.

A caretaker is the head of an institution. “The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, the driver is stubborn and the horses are not moving - and the caretaker is to blame. »

Frock coat (frock coat) - a long men's double-breasted garment with a standing "and his long green frock coat with three medals"

collar

Taurus – a young bull “the cook kills a well-fed calf”

A tavern is a hotel with a restaurant. “He soon learned that Captain Minsky was in St. Petersburg and lived in

Demutov tavern. »

Non-commissioned officer is a junior command rank in the Tsarist Army of Russia. “I stayed in the Izmailovsky regiment, in the house of a retired non-commissioned officer. »

Courier - in the old army: a military or government courier for “In five minutes - the bell!” and the courier rushes him to deliver important, mostly secret documents. your travel table. »

The kingdom of heaven is a rhetorical wish for the deceased to have a happy fate in “It happened (the kingdom of heaven to him!) comes from a tavern, and we are beyond the afterlife. him: “Grandfather, grandfather! nuts!” - and he gives us nuts. »

Rank - a rank assigned to civil servants and military personnel according to the Table “I was in a minor rank, rode on carriages and paid rank passes associated with the provision of certain class rights and for two horses. »

benefits.

Dressing gown and shlafo - dressing gown. “An old man in a cap and dressing gown lets a young man go”

SLAFROK or dressing gown m. German. robe, sleeping clothes. Most often it serves as home clothing for nobles.

COAT - originally a “sleeping robe” (from German), and then the same as a robe. Although they didn’t go out and visit in dressing gowns, they could look very elegant, sewn for show

Coachman - coachman, driver of postal and pit horses. “The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, + the stubborn horses won’t carry -

and the caretaker is to blame. »

"Peasant Young Lady"

Blancmange - jelly made from milk with almonds and sugar. “Well, we left the table. and we sat for three hours, and the dinner was delicious: the blancmange cake was blue and striped. »

Burners is a Russian folk game in which the person standing in front catches others. “So we left the table and went into the garden to play burners, and the participants ran away from him one by one in pairs. the young master appeared here. »

House servants - servants at a manor's house, courtyard; courtyard people (in contrast to “Ivan Petrovich Berestov went out for a ride on horseback, for all the peasants who lived in the village and were engaged in farming). case, taking with him a pair of three greyhounds, a stirrup and several

Dvorovoy - related to the yard, belonging to the yard. yard boys with rattles. »

Drozhki - a light, two-seater, four-wheeled open carriage with short "Muromsky asked Berestov for a droshky, because he admitted that the drozhki had springs instead of springs. Because of the injury, he was able to get home in the evening. »

Jockey - a horse race rider; servant on horseback rides. “His grooms were dressed as jockeys.”

Zoil is a picky, unkind, unfair critic; evil “He was furious and called his zoil a bear and a provincial. »

detractor

Valet - the master's household servant, footman. “That’s right,” Alex answered,

I am the young master's valet. »

Chinese - thick fabric, originally silk, made in China, “(Lisa) sent to buy at the market a thick cloth, blue then cotton, produced in Russia for sundresses and men's Chinese and copper buttons"

shirts , usually blue, less often red. Used in peasant life

Kniksen and Kniks - accepted in the bourgeois-noble environment for girls and “Unfortunately, instead of Lisa, old Miss Jackson came out, whitewashed, the girls bowed with a curtsey as a sign of gratitude, greeting; drawn out, with downcast eyes and a small curtsey. »

curtsy.

Livery - uniform for footmen, doormen, coachmen, decorated with “Old Berestov walked onto the porch with the help of two livery braids and sewing. lackeys of Muromsky. »

Livery – 1. Adj. to livery, which was livery. 2. Dressed in livery.

Madame - the name of a married woman attached to the surname; “Her agility and minute-by-minute pranks delighted her father and brought him into his mistress. Usually used in relation to a French woman, and in reference to the despair of her Madame Miss Jackson. »

– and to a Russian woman from privileged strata.

Miss is an unmarried woman in England. Her agility and minute orders delighted her father and drove her Madame Miss Jackson into despair.”

Confidant - about a woman who was especially trusted and “There she changed her clothes, absentmindedly answering questions with the eager favor of someone; darling, lover. confidante, and appeared in the living room.”

To make up - to make up, to draw with antimony, that is, popular since ancient times “Liza, his dark-skinned Lisa, was whitened up to her ears, made up more than ever with a cosmetic product made on the basis of antimony, by Miss Jackson herself. »

giving it a special shine.

Okolotok - 1. Surrounding area, surrounding villages. 2. Resident of the district, “He built a house according to his own plan, established a legal neighborhood, the surrounding area. factory, established income and began to consider himself the smartest person

3. The area of ​​the city under the jurisdiction of the local police officer. all over the area"

4. Medical center (usually attached to a military unit).

The Guardianship Council is an institution in Russia in charge of guardianship affairs, “. the first of the landowners of his province thought of mortgaging the educational institutions and some credit transactions related to the estate in the Board of Trustees.”

pledges of estates, etc.

Plis – cotton velvet. Among the nobility it was used for “On weekdays he wears a corduroy jacket, on holidays he puts on a home suit, merchants and rich peasants sew from it an elegant frock coat from homemade cloth.”

Poltina is a silver coin equal to 50 kopecks, half a ruble. Minted with “Trofim, passing in front of Nastya, gave her small colorful bast shoes

1707 and received half a ruble from her as a reward. »

Polushka - since the 15th century, a silver coin worth half money (i.e. ¼ “I’ll sell it and squander it, and I won’t leave you a half-ruble.”

kopecks); the last silver polushkas were released into circulation in

Frock coat - long men's double-breasted clothing with a stand-up collar “On weekdays he wears a corduroy jacket, on holidays he puts on a frock coat made of homemade cloth”

The head of the table is the official who manages the table. “The neighbors agreed that he would never make the right chief executive. »

Stremyanny is a groom, a servant who takes care of his riding horse “Ivan Petrovich Berestov went out for a ride on horseback, for every master, and also a servant who accompanies the master during the hunt. case, taking with him three pairs of greyhounds, a stirrup and several yard boys with rattles. »

Tartines - a thin slice of bread spread with butter; small sandwich. “The table was set, breakfast was ready, and Miss Jackson. I cut thin tartines. »

The faucets are a wide frame made of whalebone, willow twigs or wire, “the sleeves stuck out like Madame de Pompadour’s faucets.”

worn under a skirt to add fullness; skirt on such a frame.

A courtier is a nobleman at the royal court, a courtier. “The dawn shone in the east, and the golden rows of clouds seemed to be waiting for the sun, like courtiers waiting for a sovereign. »

Chekmen - men's clothing of the Caucasian type - a cloth caftan at the waist with ruching at the back. ". he saw his neighbor, sitting proudly on horseback, wearing a checkman lined with fox fur, "

IV. Conclusion

“Dictionary of Obsolete Words” contains 108 dictionary entries, both historicisms and archaisms. It contains those words that are not currently used or are used extremely rarely in the living literary language, as well as words that are used today, but have a different meaning, unlike the one we put into it.

The dictionary entry reveals the meaning of obsolete words, using examples from the stories of Pushkin’s cycle to show how they functioned in speech. The created dictionary, which includes both historicisms and archaisms, will help to overcome the barrier between the reader and the text, sometimes erected by outdated words that are incomprehensible or misunderstood by the reader, and to thoughtfully and meaningfully perceive the text of “Belkin’s Tales”. Some dictionary entries are accompanied by drawings that make it possible to realistically imagine the objects called by this or that word.

The remarkable poet, outstanding translator V. A. Zhukovsky wrote: “The word is not our arbitrary invention: every word that receives a place in the lexicon of a language is an event in the field of thought.”

This work will become an assistant in reading, studying, and understanding Pushkin’s cycle “Belkin’s Tales”, will broaden the reader’s horizons, help arouse interest in the history of words, and can be used in literature lessons.

One Russian folk song says:

He brought three pockets:
The first pocket is with pies,
The second pocket is with nuts...

It would seem, what kind of nonsense: what does it mean to “bring a pocket”?
Old dictionaries indicate that once in Rus' the word “ pocket" meant a sack or bag that was attached to the outside of clothing.

Such pockets were sometimes hung on horse saddles; if necessary, they were not closed, but “ held(opened) wider».
These days speaking "hold your pocket wider" we want to mock someone's excessive demands.

Tobacco case

In expression case tobacco Both words are clear, but why does their combination mean “very bad”, “hopeless”? You can understand this by looking into history. Let's do this together.

It turns out that the expression case tobacco came from the Volga barge haulers. When wading shallow bays or small tributaries of the Volga, barge haulers tied their tobacco pouches to their necks so that they would not get wet. When the water was so high that it came up to the neck and the tobacco became wet, the barge haulers considered the transition impossible, and their situation in these cases was very bad, hopeless.

Smoke rocker

Smoke from the rocker - how is it? Could the smoke be connected to the yoke on which buckets of water are carried? What does this expression mean?

Many years ago, poor people in Rus' built so-called smoke huts without chimneys. Smoke from the mouth of the stove poured directly into the hut and came out either through the “volokovogo” window or through the open doors in the vestibule. They say: “to love warmth and to endure smoke,” “and a kurna hut and a stove for warmth.” Over time, smoke began to be removed through pipes above the roof. Depending on the weather, the smoke comes either as a “column” - straight up, or as a “drag” - spreading downwards, or as a “yoke” - coming out in clouds and rolling over in an arc. By the way the smoke comes, they tell fortunes about a bucket or bad weather, rain or wind. They say: smoke pillar, rocker - about every human hustle and bustle, a crowded quarrel with a dump and bustle, where you can’t make out anything, where “there is such soda that the dust is a column, the smoke is a yoke - either from the dragging, or from the dancing.”

My soul has sunk into my heels

When a person is very frightened, he can develop an unusually high running speed. The ancient Greeks were the first to notice this feature.
Describing in his “Illiad” how the enemies were frightened by the hero Hector, who suddenly appeared on the battlefield, Homer uses the following phrase: “Everyone trembled, and everyone’s courage ran away…”
Since then the expression “my soul has sunk into my heels” we use it when we talk about a person who was afraid or very afraid of something.

Let's start with the fact that there is no word Easter cakes not in Russian. Easter cakes will produce Easter cakes, and Easter cakes will produce Easter cakes. In fact, they should not be sent to the middle of nowhere, but to the middle of nowhere. Then justice will prevail, and we will be able to begin to explain this truly Russian turnover.
Kuliga and kulizhki were very famous and very common words in the North of Russia. When the coniferous forest “weakens,” clearings and clearings appear there. Grass, flowers and berries instantly begin to grow on them. These forest islands were called kuligami. Since pagan times, sacrifices have been made on the folds: the priests slaughtered deer, sheep, heifers, stallions, everyone ate their fill, and got drunk.
When Christianity came to Rus' and it began to crowd out paganism, a peasant came to the camp, built a hut, began to sow rye and barley, and entire village cooperatives appeared. When life became more crowded, children and nephews left the old people, and sometimes so far away that they stopped reaching news, they lived like in the middle of nowhere .

Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the following order existed: requests, complaints or petitions addressed to the Tsar were placed in a special box nailed to a pole near the palace in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow.

In those days, all documents were written on paper rolled up in the form of a scroll. These scrolls were long, and therefore the box was long, or, as they said then, long.

Petitioners who put their petition in the box had to wait a long time for an answer, bow at the feet of the boyars and clerks, bring them gifts and bribes in order to receive an answer to their complaint. The red tape and bribes involved were common. That is why such bad fame survived for many years long box. This expression means: shamelessly delaying the matter.

First of all, let us remind you that this is what they say about purchasing something that is cheap, but at the same time completely worthwhile, necessary, and good. It turns out that the word angrily can it be used in a “good” meaning? Having delved into the dictionaries, we find out: before this word really meant “dear”, “good”. What kind of pun then comes out: “Cheap, but... expensive”? But it can be expensive not only in price (especially if you remember that the word angry has a common root with the word heart).

Some linguists claim that this expression arose as a contrast to the proverb: expensive, but cute - cheap, but rotten. It happens that And cheap and cheerful.

From the pre-revolutionary courts, many caustic expressions came into our speech. Using them, we don’t even think about how they came about.
You can often hear the expression “ the case burned out", that is, someone achieved their goal. Behind these words is the previous blatant disgrace that was happening in the judicial system. Previously, the process could stop due to the fact that documents collected by the investigation disappeared. In this case, the guilty could not be punished, and the innocent could not be acquitted.
A similar situation is described in Gogol’s story, where two friends quarreled.

A pig that belonged to Ivan Ivanovich runs into the courtroom and eats a complaint filed by its owner's former friend, Ivan Nikiforovich. Of course, this is just a funny fantasy. But in reality, papers often burned, and not always by accident. Then the defendant, who wanted to stop or delay the process, remained very pleased and said to himself: “Well, my case has burned out!”
So -" the case burned out"carries a reminder of those times when justice was administered not by judges, but by bribes.

In the bag

Several centuries ago, when mail in its current form did not exist, all messages were delivered by messengers on horseback. There were a lot of robbers roaming along the roads back then, and a bag with a package could attract the attention of robbers. Therefore, important papers, or, as they used to be called, affairs, sewn under the lining of a hat or cap. This is where the expression came from - “ it's in the bag” and means that everything is fine, everything is in order. About the successful completion or outcome of something.

Onion grief

When a person cries, it means something has happened to him. But the reason why tears well up in the eyes is not in all cases associated with some kind of misfortune. When you peel or cut onions, tears flow. And the reason for this is “ onion grief».

This saying is also known in other countries, only there it is slightly modified. The Germans, for example, use the phrase “onion tears.” People shed these tears over trifles.

Expression "onion grief" also means minor troubles that you shouldn’t be too sad about.

Deaf grouse

An experienced hunter carefully approaches a black grouse sitting carefree on a branch. The bird, not suspecting anything, is busy bursting into its intricate singing: flowing, clicking and skittering fills everything around. The black grouse will never hear the hunter creep up to an acceptable distance and unload his double-barreled shotgun.
It has long been noticed that the current black grouse temporarily loses its hearing. Hence the name of one of the black grouse breeds – wood grouse.

Expression "deaf grouse" refers to gaping, sleepy people who don’t notice anything around them. Although by nature these birds are very sensitive and attentive.

Agree that sometimes we see situations where a person responsible for some event can run back and forth saying: “there is no highlight of the program!” In this case, everyone understands that even he is a little to blame for this. Having returned home from a concert, we can say that the highlight of the program is a folk singer or other outstanding personality who was on stage.

In a word, highlight of the program is a unique number or performance that can arouse genuine interest among the public. It is known that this phraseological unit has been interpreted in many languages, but it has reached our time unchanged.

This saying arose as a mockery and mockery of the numerous tourists who, in the 19th century, traveled in huge crowds to so-called foreign places, and they did it so quickly that they did not even manage to enjoy the natural beauty and color. But later they praised everything they “saw” so much that everyone was amazed.

Also in 1928, the great writer Maxim Gorky also used this expression in one of his speeches, which further cemented it among the common people. Well, today it is often used in bohemian society, which also boasts of its knowledge of the world and numerous travels around the world.

From another source:

Ironic. Without going into details, hastily, superficially (to do something).

Compare: in a hurry; on a live thread; on a living hand; with the opposite meaning: along and across.

“For travel essays, the editors are going to send another person to the route, this must be done thoroughly, and not like a cavalry charge, galloping across Europe."

Yu. Trifonov. "Quenching Thirst"

Lies like a gray gelding

Lies like a gray gelding- this saying, which can often be heard among people, is quite difficult to interpret. Agree, it is difficult to explain why exactly the gelding, which is a representative of the animal world, was awarded such a title. And if we take into account the fact that the suit is being specified - gray gelding, then there are even more questions. Many who study this phenomenon say that everything is connected with an error that occurred in the memory of our people. After all, this is simply not explained by any other facts.
The well-known linguist Dahl said that for many years the word “ lies" , used today, could come from the word "rushing" as a result of incorrect pronunciation by one of the speakers. Initially, the gray gelding boasts enormous strength and endurance.
But we should not forget that gray gelding is not significantly different from bay or gray horses, which also boast endurance and intelligence. It follows from this that the masses could hardly simply exclude them from the phraseology and single out the gray gelding.

Today you can find another quite interesting interpretation. It is believed that this phraseological unit first arose from memories of a man named Sievens-Mehring, who had the reputation of a blatant liar. There were bad rumors about him, so many said - lies like Sievens-Mehring . Perhaps, after many years of using this option, the one we often use today has been established.
There are other opinions that completely refute previous versions. It is said that there are other interpretations of it, such as “lazy as a gray gelding” and others. Take, for example, the well-known Gogol hero Khlestakov, who often uses the expression “ stupid as a gray gelding" This also includes the concept of “bullshit,” which means nonsense and complete nonsense. In a word, phraseology has still not been able to give a clear interpretation of the expression “ lies like crazy gelding”, but this does not prevent us from using it in daily communication.

Getting into trouble

manual leak

Nowadays rope, twine, ropes are made in factories, but not so long ago it was a handicraft industry. Entire villages were engaged in it.
There were poles with hooks on the streets, from which ropes stretched to wooden wheels. They were rotated by horses running in circles. All these devices of rope craftsmen were called.
It was necessary to be careful not to get caught in the tourniquet tightly coiled in the hole. If the tip of a jacket or shirt gets caught in the weave, goodbye clothes! The prosak will shred it, tear it up, and sometimes mutilate the person himself.

V.I. Dal explains: “The gap is the space from the spinning wheel to the sleigh, where the twine twists and turns..; if you get in there with the end of your clothes or your hair, it will twist you and you won’t be able to get out; that’s where the saying comes from.”

That's where the dog is buried!

As the story goes, the experienced Austrian warrior Sigismund Altensteig had a favorite dog that accompanied him on all his military campaigns. It so happened that fate threw Sigismund to the Dutch lands, where he found himself in a very dangerous situation. But the devoted four-legged friend quickly came to the rescue and saved the owner, sacrificing his life. To pay tribute to the dog, Altensteig arranged a solemn funeral and decorated the grave with a monument immortalizing the dog's heroic deed.
But after a couple of centuries, finding the monument became very difficult; only a few local residents could help tourists find it.

That’s when the expression “ That's where the dog is buried!", meaning "to find out the truth", "to find what you are looking for."

There is another version of the origin of this phrase. Before the final naval battle between the Persian and Greek fleets, the Greeks loaded all the children, old men and women into transport ships and sent them away from the battle site.
The devoted dog of Xanthippus, son of Arifron, swam to catch up with the ship and, having met his owner, died of exhaustion. Xanthippus, amazed by the dog’s act, erected a monument to his pet, which became the personification of devotion and courage.

Some linguists believe that the proverb was invented by treasure hunters who fear evil spirits that guard treasures. To hide their true goals, they said “black dog” and dog, which meant evil spirits and treasure, respectively. Based on this assumption, under the phrase “ That's where the dog is buried” meant “This is where the treasure is buried.”

Free will

Perhaps to some this expression seems complete nonsense: like “ oil oil" But don’t rush to conclusions, but rather listen.

Many years ago, the ancient Russian appanage princes wrote in their agreements with each other: “And the boyars, and the boyars’ children and servants, and the peasants free will…»

For a free person, the will was thus a right, a privilege, it meant freedom of action and deeds, it allowed you to live on earth as long as you lived and go wherever you wanted. Only free people enjoyed this freedom, which in those days were considered to be sons with fathers, brothers with brothers, nephews with uncles, and so on.

And there were also serfs and slaves who forever belonged to the masters. They could be pawned as an item, sold and even killed without trial.

Simoni: the will of the wave, the path of the walker;

Dahl: free will - heaven for the saved, field for the mad, swamp for the devil.

To be born in a shirt

In one of the poems of the Russian poet Koltsov there are the lines:

Oh, on a miserable day,
At a mediocre hour
I'm without a shirt
Born...

To uninitiated people, the last two lines may seem very strange. One might think that the lyrical hero regrets that in the womb he did not have time to put on a shirt, or, to put it in a language that everyone understands, a shirt.

Once upon a time, a shirt was called not only an element of clothing, but also various films. The thin membrane located under the eggshell could also bear this name.

Sometimes it happens that the baby's head, when it is born, may be covered with a film that soon falls off. According to ancient beliefs, a child born with such a film will be happy in life. And the French even came up with a special name for it - “ hat of happiness».

Nowadays, the thought that a little film on a newborn's head will make him lucky makes him smile. However, in a figurative sense, we often use this expression when we talk about people who are lucky in something. Now the phrase is used only as a saying, and the folk sign has long since sunk into oblivion.

By the way, not only in the Russian language there is such a proverb. Europeans also use similar expressions, for example, “ born in a cap" The English have another phrase that has the same meaning: “to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.” But it came from a different custom. The fact is that in Foggy Albion it is customary to give spoons made of silver to newborns for good luck.

They don’t go to someone else’s monastery with their own rules

Once upon a time, the routine of the entire monastic life was determined monastic statutes. One monastery was guided by one charter, another by another. Moreover: in the old days, some monasteries had their own judicial statutes and had the right to independently judge their people in all their sins and transgressions.

Expression: " They don’t go to someone else’s monastery with their own rules“This is used in a figurative sense to mean one must obey established rules, customs in society, at home, and not establish one’s own.

Stoeros balbeshka

This is what they say about a stupid, stupid person.
“Excuse me, why did I say such a stupid, absurd thing to you, it jumped out of my mouth, I don’t know, I’m a fool, a stupid idiot” (Yu. Bondarev).

Artist of the burnt theater

About a person whose real abilities or capabilities do not correspond to their perceived level.

“Death is the same for everyone, it is the same for everyone, and no one is given freedom from it. And while she, death, lies in wait for you in an unknown place, with inevitable torment, and the fear of it exists in you, you are not a hero or a god, just an artist from a burnt theater, amusing himself and his flogged listeners.”

(V. Astafiev).

This idiom (stable phrase) is intended to evaluate non-professionals. A couple of centuries ago, the profession of a theater actor was, to put it mildly, unprestigious.

Hence the disdain evident in the phrase: firstly, an actor, and secondly, without a theater. In other words, the circus left, but the clowns remained.
Because the burned theater is not the theater that was destroyed by the flames of the fire, but the one that went bankrupt due to the inept performance of the actors.

Appetite comes with eating

About the increase in someone's needs as they are satisfied.

The expression came into use after it was used by the French writer F. Rabelais (1494-1553) in his novel “Gargantua and Pantagruel” (1532).

Guardian angel

According to religious beliefs, a creature that is the patron of man.

“He prayed every time until he felt as if someone’s fresh touch on his forehead; this, he thought then, is the guardian angel who accepts me” (I. Turgenev).

About a person who shows constant attention and care to someone.

Beat with your forehead

Ancient antiquity emanates from this original Russian expression. And it came from Moscow palace customs. It used to be that the boyars closest to the Tsar gathered in the “front” of the Kremlin Palace early in the morning and in the afternoon at Vespers. When they saw the king, they began to bow, touching their foreheads to the floor. And others did it with such zeal that even the tapping could be heard: please, sir, appreciate our love and zeal.

The legend is fresh, but hard to believe.
As he was famous for, whose neck bent more often;
How not in war, but in peace they took it head on -
They hit the floor without regret!

A. Griboyedov, “Woe from Wit”

Thus, hit with one's forehead means first of all " bow”, well, its second meaning is “to ask for something”, “to complain”, “to thank”.

“Oriental splendor reigned at the Court of our kings, who, following the Asian custom, forced the ambassadors to speak in no other way than on their knees and prostrate themselves on the ground before the throne, from which came the then-used expression: I hit with my forehead.”

The evidence given for the existence of prostration dates back no earlier than the 16th century, since Ivan the Terrible was the first to accept the permanent title of “tsar” in Moscow in 1547. It turns out that the history of the phrase “beat with the forehead” began twice. At first they “beat with their foreheads” in the literal sense, admitting their guilt, and with the introduction of Christianity - worshiping the Lord God. Then they “beat with their foreheads” in words, complaining, thanking and greeting, and finally they introduced the custom of bowing to the ground of the sovereign at court, which was also called “beating with their foreheads.”

Then, in the first case, the expression did not mean “bow to the ground,” but “bow from the waist,” in the form when, asking for forgiveness in local disputes, the offender, standing on the bottom step of the porch, bowed to his ruler from the waist. The strong one stood on the top step. The bow from the waist was thus accompanied by petitions and the banging of the forehead on the steps.

To rake in the heat with someone else's hands

This means: using the results of someone else's work.

What kind of heat are we talking about?

Heat is burning coals. And, by the way, raking them out of the oven was not an easy task for the housewife: it would have been simpler and easier for her to do it “with someone else’s hands.”

Among the common people there is also a rougher version:

“Ride someone else’s dick to heaven.”

Beat your head

To be lazy is to be idle.

What is it thumbs up ? Surely a word should have its own meaning?

Yes, sure. When in Rus' they slurped cabbage soup and ate porridge with wooden spoons, tens of thousands of artisans they were kicking ass , that is, they chopped logs of linden wood into blanks for the master spooner. This work was considered trivial and was usually performed by an apprentice. That is why she became a model not of action, but of idleness.

Of course, everything is learned by comparison, and this work seemed easy only against the backdrop of hard peasant labor.

And not everyone will succeed now beat your thumbs .

Know by heart

The meaning of these words is known to children as well as adults. Know by heart - means, for example, to learn a poem perfectly, to solidify a role, and generally to have an excellent understanding of something.

And there was a time when know by heart , check by heart taken almost literally. This saying arose from the custom of testing the authenticity of gold coins, rings and other items made of precious metal. You bite the coin with your teeth, and if there is no dent left on it, then it is genuine, not counterfeit. Otherwise, you could have gotten a fake one: hollow inside or filled with cheap metal.

The same custom gave rise to another vivid figurative expression: figure out a person , that is, to thoroughly know his advantages, disadvantages, intentions.

Wash dirty linen in public

Usually this expression is used with negation: “ Don't wash dirty linen in public!».

Its figurative meaning, I hope, is known to everyone: quarrels, squabbles occurring between close people, or secrets of a narrow circle of people should not be disclosed.

But this is the true meaning phraseology Let's try to explain now, although it won't be easy. This expression is associated with evil spirits and, by the way, there are a lot of them in the Russian language. According to ancient beliefs, dirty laundry must be burned in the oven so that it does not fall into the hands of evil people. The so-called healer “bends” or “attitudes” used to be very common. A diversion could serve, for example, as a bundle thrown at a crossroads to “protect” against illness. Coal or stove ash was usually wrapped in such a bundle - a cookie .

It was especially popular among healers, because it was in the oven that they burned dirty laundry from the hut, which contained hair and other items necessary for witchcraft. It is no coincidence that the ban on washing dirty linen in public has come into use in the Russian language.

Written on the water with a pitchfork

The expression “Writing on water with a pitchfork” comes from Slavic mythology.

Today it means an unlikely, doubtful and hardly possible event. In Slavic mythology, pitchforks were the name of mythical creatures living in bodies of water. According to legend, they could predict fate by writing it on the water. To this day, “forks” in some Russian dialects mean “circles.”
During fortune telling, pebbles were thrown into the river and the future was predicted based on the shape of the circles formed on the surface, their intersections and sizes. And since these predictions are not accurate and rarely come true, they began to talk about an unlikely event.

In not so long ago, gypsies with bears walked around the villages and staged various performances. They led the bears on a leash tied to a ring threaded through the nose. Such a ring made it possible to keep bears in obedience and perform the necessary tricks. During the performances, the gypsies performed various tricks, cleverly deceiving the audience.

Over time, the expression came to be used in a broader sense - “to mislead someone.”

Goal like a falcon

In the old days, battering guns called “falcon” were used to take besieged cities. It was an iron-bound log or cast-iron beam fastened with chains. Swinging it, they hit the walls and destroyed them.

The figurative expression “goal as a falcon” means “poor to the last extreme, nowhere to get money, even if you bang your head against the wall.”

Keep me away

The expression “Beware of me” came to us from ancient times.
From ancient times to this day we say “Keep away from me”, “Keep away from me”, “Keep away from me”. Chur is the ancient name of the keeper of the house, the hearth (Chur - Shchur - Ancestor).

It is fire, mental and physical, that gives people warmth, light, comfort and goodness in every sense, and is the main custodian of family wealth and family happiness.

Vocabulary is the totality of all the words we use. Ancient words can be considered a separate group in the vocabulary. There are many of them in the Russian language, and they belong to different historical eras.

What are old words

Since language is an integral part of the history of a people, the words that are used in this language are of historical value. Ancient words and their meaning can tell a lot about what events took place in the life of the people in a particular era and which of them were of great importance. Ancient, or outdated, words are not actively used in our time, but are present in the vocabulary of the people, recorded in dictionaries and reference books. They can often be found in works of art.

For example, in the poem by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin we read the following passage:

"In the crowd of mighty sons,

With friends, in the high grid

Vladimir the sun feasted,

He gave away his youngest daughter

For the brave prince Ruslan."

There is the word “gridnitsa” here. Nowadays it is not used, but in the era of Prince Vladimir it meant a large room in which the prince, together with his warriors, held celebrations and feasts.

Historicisms

There are different types of ancient words and their designations. According to scientists, they are divided into two large groups.

Historicisms are words that are now not actively used for the reason that the concepts they denote have fallen out of use. For example, “caftan”, “chain mail”, armor”, etc. Archaisms are words that denote concepts familiar to us in other words. For example, mouth - lips, cheeks - cheeks, neck - neck.

In modern speech, as a rule, they are not used. Clever words and their meanings, which are incomprehensible to many, are not typical for our everyday speech. But they do not disappear completely from use. Writers use historicisms and archaisms to truthfully tell about the past of the people; with the help of these words they convey the flavor of the era. Historicisms can truthfully tell us about what once happened in other eras in our homeland.

Archaisms

Unlike historicisms, archaisms denote those phenomena that we encounter in modern life. These are smart words, and their meanings do not differ from the meanings of words familiar to us, they just sound differently. There are different archaisms. There are those that differ from ordinary words only in some features in spelling and pronunciation. For example, hail and city, gold and gold, young - young. These are phonetic archaisms. In the 19th century there were many such words. This is klob (club), stora (curtain).

There is a group of archaisms with obsolete suffixes, for example, muzeum (museum), assistance (assistance), rybar (fisherman). Most often we come across lexical archaisms, for example, oko - eye, right hand - right hand, shuitsa - left hand.

Like historicisms, archaisms are used to create a special world in fiction. Thus, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin often used archaic vocabulary to add pathos to his works. This is clearly evident in the example of the poem “The Prophet”.

Words from Ancient Rus'

Ancient Rus' gave a lot to modern culture. But then there was a special lexical environment, some words from which have been preserved in modern Russian. And some are no longer used at all. Old obsolete Russian words from that era give us an idea of ​​the origins of the East Slavic languages.

For example, old curse words. Some of them very accurately reflect the negative qualities of a person. Pustobrekh is a chatterbox, Ryuma is a crybaby, the thick-haired forehead is a fool, and shabby is a disheveled person.

The meaning of ancient Russian words sometimes differed from the meanings of the same roots in the modern language. We all know the words “jump” and “jump”; they mean rapid movement in space. The Old Russian word “sig” meant the smallest unit of time. One moment contained 160 whitefish. The largest measurement value was considered to be “far distance,” which was equal to 1.4 light years.

Ancient words and their meanings are discussed by scientists. The names of coins that were used in Ancient Rus' are considered ancient. For coins that appeared in the eighth and ninth centuries in Rus' and were brought from the Arab Caliphate, the names “kuna”, “nogata” and “rezana” were used. Then the first Russian coins appeared - zlatniks and silver coins.

Outdated words from the 12th and 13th centuries

The pre-Mongol period in Rus', 12-13 centuries, is characterized by the development of architecture, which was then called architecture. Accordingly, a layer of vocabulary related to the construction and construction of buildings appeared then. Some of the words that appeared then remained in the modern language, but the meaning of ancient Russian words has changed over all this time.

The basis of life in Rus' in the 12th century was the fortress, which then had the name “Detinets”. A little later, in the 14th century, the term “Kremlin” appeared, which then also meant the city. The word "kremlin" can be an example of how old, outdated Russian words change. If now there is only one Kremlin, the residence of the head of state, then there were many Kremlins.

In the 11th and 12th centuries in Rus', cities and fortresses were built from wood. But they could not resist the onslaught of the Mongol-Tatars. The Mongols, when they came to conquer the lands, simply swept away the wooden fortresses. The stone cities of Novgorod and Pskov survived. The word “Kremlin” appears for the first time in the Tver chronicle of 1317. Its synonym is the ancient word “kremnik”. Then kremlins were built in Moscow, Tula and Kolomna.

The social and aesthetic role of archaisms in classical fiction

Ancient words, the discussion of which is often found in scientific articles, were often used by Russian writers in order to make the speech of their works of art more expressive. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his article described the process of creating “Boris Godunov”: “I tried to guess the language of that time.”

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov also used ancient words in his works, and their meaning exactly corresponded to the realities of the time from which they were taken. Most of the ancient words appear in his work “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich.” This is, for example, “you know”, “oh you goy are you”, Ali.” Also, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky writes works in which there are many ancient words. These are “Dmitry the Pretender”, “Voevoda”, “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”.

The role of words from past eras in modern literature

Archaisms remained popular in the literature of the 20th century. Let us remember the famous work of Ilf and Petrov “The Twelve Chairs”. Here, ancient words and their meaning have a special, humorous connotation.

For example, in the description of Ostap Bender’s visit to the village of Vasyuki, the phrase “The one-eyed man did not take his only eye off the grandmaster’s shoes” appears. Archaisms with Church Slavonic overtones are also used in another episode: “Father Fedor became hungry. He wanted wealth."

Stylistic errors when using historicisms and archaisms

Historicisms and archaisms can greatly embellish fiction, but their inept use causes laughter. Ancient words, the discussion of which often becomes very lively, as a rule, cannot be used in everyday speech. If you start asking a passerby: “Why is your neck open in winter?”, then he will not understand you (meaning your neck).

In newspaper speech, there is also inappropriate use of historicisms and archaisms. For example: “The school director welcomed young teachers who came to practice.” The word "welcomed" is synonymous with the word "welcomed". Sometimes schoolchildren insert archaisms into their essays and thereby make the sentences not very clear and even absurd. For example: “Olya came running in tears and told Tatyana Ivanovna about her offense.” Therefore, if you want to use ancient words, their meaning, interpretation, meaning must be absolutely clear to you.

Outdated words in fantasy and science fiction

Everyone knows that genres such as fantasy and science fiction have gained enormous popularity in our time. It turns out that ancient words are widely used in works of the fantasy genre, and their meaning is not always clear to the modern reader.

The reader can understand such concepts as “banner” and “finger”. But sometimes there are more complex words, such as “komon” and “nasad”. It must be said that publishing houses do not always approve of the excessive use of archaisms. But there are works in which the authors successfully use historicisms and archaisms. These are works from the “Slavic fantasy” series. For example, the novels by Maria Stepanova “Valkyrie”, Tatyana Korostyshevskaya “Mother of the Four Winds”, Maria Semenova “Wolfhound”, Denis Novozhilov “The Far Away Kingdom. War for the throne."