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INTRODUCTION
Languages borrow words. That is a fact purists around the globe are not prepared to accept
without a fight. English is no exception. On the contrary. It has always been, and as the
present situation shows, will always be, one of the most easily penetrable languages in the
world. Its contributors come from all continents and all language groups.
Our interest in this phenomenon will be limited to the input of the group of Slavic
languages. The reason for that is perhaps a selfish but nevertheless, just one. Namely, our
native tongue belongs to this group, and it was to discover its particular share in the English
lexicon, that provided the initial stimulus for the selection of this specific topic.
To start with, we shall try to answer some basic questions about the background of
borrowing Slavic words into English. Next, the analysis of the corpus will commence, by
presenting a concise overview of Slavic languages and their individual share in the body of
examples. To continue, we shall analyse the corpus first in terms of the basic three-fold
division of loanwords into simple loans, adapted loans and calques or loan translations,
and then in terms of Sir James Murray’s division into casuals, aliens, denizens and naturals,
which will hopefully shed some light on the process of word-naturalization. Finally, a
semantic analysis of the examples will follow, with the primary emphasis on the changes of
meaning, as demonstrated with Slavic borrowings in the English language.
In the end, we hope this thesis with its body of examples, will prove a valuable reference to
all interested in this area of linguistic science, and will also contribute a small fraction to the
study of English – Slovene linguistic relations.
English has over the centuries borrowed a great number of words from numerous languages
around the world. Contributors range from well known Latin (delirium, axis…) and French
(chauffeur, garage…) to more obscure Hindi (jungle, shampoo…) and Eskimo (kayak,
anorak…). In this process Slavic languages have by no means been ignored: Russian, as the
most prolific source, Polish, Serbo-Croat, Bulgarian and others, have made an impact on
the English word stock.
But why does a language borrow a word from another language? Usually this happens as a
result of some new object or notion appearing for which the matrix or recipient language
(Bright 1992: 199) has no word of its own. For example, a samovar is characteristic of
Russia but has no suitable counterpart in the British culture (similarly the Bulgarian and
Serbo-Croat rakia, Serbo-Croat tamburitza or Polish mazurka). Consequently, the word is
imported, together with the object, into the English language.
This “importation” of words occurs via commerce (new products not familiar to the
borrowing language), war (new weaponry, army units, garments), development in science
(inventions, discoveries), and progress in the numerous fields of intellectual activity
(philosophy, literature, arts…).
With regard to the latter phenomenon, it is important to understand that acquiring and
passing of information is one of the most important and profitable businesses of the late 20th
and early 21st century, in which speed is of great importance. As a result, foreign words
enter a language like English easily, often without any change in their spelling or even
pronunciation, for example: lunik, the name of the Soviet spacecraft; glasnost, the policy of
public frankness in Russia, or the acronym KGB, standing for the Soviet secret police. To
render such words into English would not only require time, but would also lose a lot in
translation.
English with its “cosmopolitan vocabulary” (Baugh & Cable 1993: 9), does not seem to
mind the overwhelming influx of foreign words into its ranks. Quite the opposite. It has
always shown “a marked tendency to go outside its own linguistic resources and borrow
from other languages.” (Baugh & Cable 1993: 10) Moreover, English does not seem to be
particularly selective from whom it borrows. That is, it does not choose a country or a
political system similar to it, as politicians do, to form relations or borrow a word. If this
were the case, languages belonging behind the former “iron curtain” (mainly Slavic) would
stand no chance of contributing to the English lexicon.
Fortunately, linguistic interaction does not follow the pattern of international politics, but
the rather simple rule of filling a need when it occurs. Therefore, Slavonic languages at the
time of the cold war were not removed from the linguistic map of its western neighbours.
The communist era (from the October Revolution onwards) was the time during which a
considerable number of Slavonic words, yet foremost of Russian origin, was imported into
the English language. Examples, predominantly political in their overtones, are quite a few:
Aesopic, Agit-prop, agrogorod, apparat, apparatchik, artel, Bolshevik, Bolshevism, Cheka,
Comecon, Cominform, Comintern, commissar, disinformation, Gosplan, intelligentsia,
Ivan, kalashnikov, Katyusha, KGB, kolkhoz, Komsomol, kray, Kremlin, kulak, liquidate (to
kill), lunik, lunokhod, marsokhod, Menshevik, N.K.V.D., oblast, okrug, planetokhod,
pogrom, politbureau, rayon, refusenik, resident, samizdat, samizdatchik, SMERSH, Soviet,
sovkhoz, sputnik, Stakhanovite, subbotnik, Talmudism, tamizdat, TASS, tolkach, tovarish,
troika, udarnik, vozhd all from Russian.
The reason why so many words dealing with the communist regime were imported during
the 20th century, lies in the spirit of the time (especially the late 40s, 50s and the 60s, to a
lesser extent in the 70s and 80s), during which communism was considered a threat to the
western democracy and great interest was placed in the political development in the USSR.
Every move the Russians made in the arms or space race was therefore accurately recorded
and reported to the British, but even more so, the American public.
The news of the period, whether in the newspapers, radio or TV, often contained the
original Russian expressions in order to reinforce the message and create a feeling of
immediate and present danger. Consequently, through the media “the sputniks” and “the
KGBs” slowly penetrated the English word stock. This development was further
strengthened by the Hollywood film industry, with its innumerable spy movies, and the
popular spy literature, whose authors, in order to ultimately boost their sales, were more
than keen on being as authentic as possible, and used whatever came across the Atlantic.
What is from the present standpoint intriguing about the whole process, is the paradox that
eventually developed. Namely, the fear of a country and its people, via its political system,
helped in promoting its language, as demonstrated in the adoption of its words.
It would appear, after examining the above enumerated loanwords, that only Russian terms
connected with the communist regime were imported into the English vocabulary during the
last century. This was of course not the case. Also other areas of human activity and other
Slavonic languages contributed to the English lexicon: Acmeism, skaz (literature),
biomechanics, constructivism (theatre), chernozem, dolina, podzol, rendzina, Sakmarian,
thermokarst (geology), cubo-futurism (painting), ferganite, innelite, irinite (mineralogy),
idiogram, karyotype (medicine), kok-saghyz (botany), phytosociology (biology),
ploschadka (archaeology), polaron, tokamak (physics), sulphazin (pharmacy),
suprematism (artistic movement), sluggish (psychology), sobornost (theology) from
Russian; akathisia (psychology), ferritin (biochemistry), koktaite, slavikite, vrbaite
(mineralogy), robot (theatre) from Czech; sharka (fruit disease) from Bulgarian; hum,
polje, ponor, uvala (physical geography), takovite (mineralogy), from Serbo-Croat;
macrolide (pharmacy), Mariavite (religion), metapsychics (psychology), Sejm
(government), Tietze (medicine) from Polish and gley (geology) from Ukrainian.
These words demonstrate the immense progress of human society in the 20th century, as
well as its interrelation. They are all more or less specialised terms used mainly within their
specialized areas. Once used by an author in a publication (a book, magazine or a manual),
they were eventually taken up by an English speaking scholar and entered the English word
stock. Borrowing them into English was much easier than searching for a suitable
equivalent that would, in the end, perhaps not work.
But still, not only words belonging to political and technical terminology, were imported
from Slavonic languages during the 20th century. Also every day items found their way into
English:, babushka, rubashka, shapka, valenki (items of clothing), blintze, kissel, knish,
latke, Mukuzan, pavlova, pelmeny, piroshki, shashlik, smetana, solyanka, Stolichnaya,
stroganoff, tvorog, zakuski (dishes and drinks), laika, tarbagan (animal names), mahorka,
ongon, prisiadka, prospekt, provodnik, riza, sanitar, stolovaya, technicum, theremin,
vigorish (miscellaneous) from Russian; dobro (a musical instrument), kolach (a dish) from
Czech; Gamza (a drink) from Bulgaria; kolo (a dance), slatko (a dish), tamburitza (a
musical instrument) from Serbo-Croat; kielbasa (a dish), oberek (a dance), yarmulke (a
clothing item) from Polish; gopak (a dance) from Ukrainian and pivo (a drink) as a word of
common Slavic origin (the exact Slavic language as the ultimate source is not given).
A closer look at the above list reveals that more than a third of the words denote a dish or a
drink. We could speculate about the reasons for that, but it is probably due to the
importance of food to human beings (both in the sense of survival and the gourmet
understanding of the concept), that such words are so frequently borrowed among
languages. A less philosophical rationale would be that Slavs immigrated in great numbers
during the communist regime, which did not except a single Slavonic state existent at that
time. Many ended in an English speaking country where some of them started a normal life
by opening restaurants serving their national dishes. Naturally, they retained the original
names that spread with the potential success of such enterprises.
Other words from the list entered the English language in a similar manner, but also through
itineraries of travellers, who crossed a Slavonic country and made notes of what they had
seen and experienced, and through people who lived and worked there for a period of time,
during which they became intimately familiar with the customs, language and people of the
country. This way of adopting Slavonic words was even more prominent before the 20th
century, in the times of tsars, kings and knezes.
Individuals visited Slavonic countries for various reasons. Some came there on an errand,
financed by their government or a wealthy company, while others were travellers, seeking
adventures and knowledge. Upon their return, these people, almost as a rule, wrote
accounts of their experiences. Amongst them were: Giles Fletcher senior (1548-1611), a
diplomat in the tsarist Russia, with his work Of the Russe Common Wealth (1591), a
comprehensive account of Russian geography, government, law, methods of warfare,
church, and manners; Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), a Scottish soldier of fortune who
became a general in the Russian army and a close friend of Peter I, with his diary; Edward
Daniel Clarke (1769-1822), English mineralogist and traveller, who described his voyages
in his principal work Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, 6.vol.
(1810-23), and John Perry, a cartographer known for measuring the flow of Volga, with his
work State of Russia (1716).
Words of Slavic origin that entered the English vocabulary through the works of these and
other diplomats, scientists and travellers are the following: arsheen, vedro (measure),
beluga, losh, mammoth, zubr (animals), bidarka, droshky, telega (means of transport),
boyar, czar (aristocracy), caback, choom, isba, kibitka, ostrog, yurt (dwellings), chark (a
drinking glass), ikary, kasha, koumiss, kvass, vodka (food and beverage), Khlist, ikon
(religion), knout, moujik, peach, saffian, shaman, shuba, steppe, strelitz (miscellaneous)
from Russian; Morlach (nation) from Serbo-Croat; hetman, uhlan (army) from Polish, and
knez, voivode (aristocracy) lasset (animal) as words of undetermined common Slavic
origin1.
2.3 SUMMARY
Words brought into English during both periods (i.e. 20th century and before) clearly show
how languages import items of vocabulary as a result of a linguistic need that emerges as
cultures encounter one another. But what is more, ideas and notions characteristic of one
group of people, enter the consciousness of another group via the borrowing of linguistic
items. In other words, linguistic communication enables the penetration and transfer of
concepts into and to cultures that might be completely different from the source
environment (A good example is obviously English with its world-wide lingua franca status,
established during the 20th century.).
Applying this to the Slavic words in English, we see that especially Russian has left quite a
prominent mark on the vocabulary of English speaking nations, and hence, as previously
established, on their consciousness. For example, a word like tovarish cannot be used
stripped of its underlying meaning, i.e. without bringing up the association of communism,
particularly that characteristic of the former Soviet Union. So, if we use it to refer to a
person who is not a communist at all, we attribute such qualities to him or her via the
special cultural connotation tovarish has brought along when adopted into English. We
could also say that we attribute something “Russian” to the person in question.
This transfer of ideas and notions from one language to another through the adoption of
words is perhaps even more important than the linguistic process of borrowing in itself, for
it proves that a nation and its language are not hermetically sealed, but open to influences
and change.
3. CORPUS ANALYSIS
The same source maintains that in the spoken Slavonic dialects (as opposed to the sharply
contrasted thirteen Slavonic literary standards) the linguistic frontiers are not always
apparent, and that there are several transitional dialects and mixed forms of speech that
connect the different languages, the exception being the area where the South Slavs are
separated from the other Slavs by the non-Slavic Romanians, Hungarians, and German-
speaking Austrians. But even in this latter region, some evidence of the old dialectical
continuity (between Slovene and Serbo-Croatian on the one hand, and Czech and Slovak on
the other) that was later interrupted, can be traced; the same traces of the old links are seen
in comparing Bulgarian and Russian dialects.
Therefore, the traditional schematic division of the Slavonic group into three separate
branches is not to be taken as the real model of historical development. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica proposes, that it would be more realistic to represent the historical development
as a process in which tendencies to differentiate and to reintegrate the related dialects have
been continuously at work, bringing up the remarkable degree of uniformity in the different
dialects.
The South Slavonic includes two subgroups: Eastern including Bulgarian and
Macedonian and Western with Serbo-Croatian3 and Slovene.
The standard Serbo-Croatian language was formed in the first half of the 19th century on
the basis of Shtokavian dialects. These dialects are called Shtokavian because they use the
form što (shto) for the interrogative pronoun “what?”. They are distinguished from the
Chakavian dialects of Western Croatia, Istria, the coast of Dalmatia, and of some islands in
the Adriatic, where ča (cha) is the form for “what?”. A third main group of Serbo-Croatian
dialects, spoken in north-western Croatia, uses kaj rather than što or ča and is therefore
called Kajkavian. In all, more than 18,000,000 people speak Serbo-Croatian.
The West Slavonic includes three subgroups: Czech-Slovak, Sorbian and Lekhitic (Polish
and related tongues).
3.1.2.1 Czech (formerly Bohemian) is spoken by about 9,800,000 people in the historical
regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and south-western Silesia in the Czech Republic. Its dialects
are divided into Bohemian, Moravian, and Silesian groups. The standard language is based
on the Central Bohemian dialect of Prague.
The Slovak standard language was formed on the basis of a Central Slovak dialect in the
middle of the 19th century. Western Slovak dialects are close to Moravian and differ from
the Central and the Eastern dialects, which have features in common with Polish and
Ukrainian. More than 4,600,000 speak Slovak; they are located mostly in Slovakia.
3.1.2.2 Sorbian dialects are still spoken by about 140,000 inhabitants of Lower Lusatia and
Upper Lusatia in East Germany. There are three main groups of Sorbian dialects: High
Sorbian (Upper Sorbian, called also Lusatian of Wendish), one of which, in the area of
Bautzen, is the basis of the standard language; Low Sorbian (or Lower Sorbian); and East
Sorbian.
3.1.2.3 Lekhitic includes Polish, Kashubian (and its archaic variant Slovincian) and extinct
Polabian.
3.1.3.1 Russian is the native language of about 139,300,000 people and is widely used as a
second language in other former republics of the USSR. Russian was also taught
extensively in those countries lying within the Soviet sphere of influence, especially in
eastern Europe, in the second half of the 20th century. Russian dialects are divided into the
Northern group (stretching from St. Petersburg all across Siberia), the Southern group (in
most of central and southern Russia), and the Central group (between Northern and
Southern). Modern literary Russian is based on the dialect of Moscow.
3.1.3.2. Ukrainian, also called Ruthenian, is spoken by more than 42,700,000 people in
Ukraine and in Ukrainian communities in the neighbouring Belarus, Russia, Poland, and
Slovakia, and there are more than 580,000 Ukrainian speakers in Canada and the USA.
Ukrainian dialects are classified into Northern, South-Eastern, South-Western and
Carpathian divisions (the last group having features in common with Slovak); the standard
language is based on the Kiev-Poltava dialect.
Not all of the above listed languages appear in the corpus, although an attempt has been
made at finding at least one representative of each language. Proportionally, it is interesting,
if not expected, how Slavic languages spoken by a smaller number of people, have left
almost no trace in the English lexicon. The reasons, admittedly speculative, could be the
influence or the absence of influence these nations had on the British culture throughout
history, and the relatively poor British interest in them from a scientific, political and
economic view, resulting in a lack of corresponding contacts and therefore in poor, if any,
linguistic intercourse. To put it more bluntly: these languages were and are simply not big
and important enough to leave any prominent mark on the English vocabulary.
Be that as it may, the following languages did make it to the corpus: Russian as the principal
contributor of Slavic borrowings, Czech (formerly Bohemian; this term appears with a small
number of examples in the OED), Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish, Slovak and
Ukrainian. A number of examples are designated broadly of “Slavic” origin, since the exact
source cannot be determined.
If we examine the total English vocabulary closely, we see that a great proportion of it
consists of words of ultimately foreign origin. Yet, according to John Algeo (1991: 4):
“Many such words were actually formed in English, so the extremely high percentage of
borrowing sometimes reported for English is exaggerated.”
Algeo (1991:4) divides borrowings or loanwords into three types: simple loans, adapted
loans and loan translations.
Simple loans are adopted directly into English, sometimes with minor changes in
pronunciation to make them conform to English sound laws and patterns. Occasionally,
spelling changes of a similar kind are also required but with no major change of form. To
illustrate: apparatchik, artel, balalaika, glasnost from Russian, dumka from Czech, and
gusle from Serbian.
Adapted loans on the other hand, involve some morphological change (change of form),
rather than only slight modifications of phonology and orthography. In other words, they
are adapted from their foreign word pattern into a more native (English) one. For example,
a foreign ending may be omitted and replaced with a native suffix: constructivism from the
Russian konstruktivizm, folkloristics from the Russian folkloristika, and akathisia from the
Czech akathisie.
Loan translations or calques differ from the above borrowings in that they are not foreign
in their form but in the meaning they convey; i.e. instead of borrowing the form of a foreign
word, English sometimes borrows its meaning, rendering the foreign sense by suitable
words in the form of literal translations already part of the English vocabulary:
biogeochemistry translating Russian biogeokhimiya, defamiliarization translating Russian
The examples of bachelors and foregrounding are somewhat peculiar and follow the
definition of loan translations only to a certain degree. Namely, they are not literal
translations of their foreign equivalents, but rather the “closest” possible renderings, both
linguistically as well as culturally. For instance, the definition of bachelor is primarily that
of “an unmarried man” and is therefore nearest to the meaning of holluschickie, a young
seal that has not yet mated. A literal translation is not possible for there is no cultural, hence
linguistic, equivalent in the English language.
The corpus contains also examples of a phenomenon called partial translation, where part
of the word or phrase is preserved in its original, and part of it is translated: agro-city, agro-
town and the simple loan agrogorod, refusenik from the Russian original otkaznik, where –
nik is a remnant from the source language (Bright 1992: 199) and refuse- is an English
translation. .
In analysing the corpus, the frequency of occurrence follows the order of description from
the previous paragraphs. Most numerous are the simple loans, the majority of which have
undergone some sort of phonological or orthographic change, so that there are few entries,
with absolutely no alterations to be found in the corpus; the rare examples being balalaika,
burka, bylina, kasha, Katyusha.
Following the simple loans in their number are the adapted loans. English, as other
languages of the world, often adopts only stems rather than entire words, on which it can
easily perform appropriate changes that make the word more “user-friendly”, i.e. easier to
pronounce, spell and use for the native speaker. Changes include replacement of a foreign
by a native affix, change of stress pattern and changes in spelling. The following examples
are illustrative of the process: achtaragdite, introducing the native noun forming suffix –ite
instead of the Russian achtaragda (similarly kalistrontite, nifontovite); acmeism with the
native noun forming suffix -ism instead of the Russian akmeizm (similarly constructivism);
astatki from the Russian ostátki, where the English form imitates the Russian pronunciation
of the word; astrobotany using the noun forming suffix -y instead of the Russian
astrobotanika (similarly the Polish kromesky) ; biomechanics using the noun forming suffix
-ics and changing the spelling of the medial -kh- into a more English like -ch-, instead of
the Russian biomekhanika (similarly folkloristics, meteoritics, metapsychics); choom
imitating the Russian pronunciation but changing the orthography from Russian chum into
English -oo-; crash where the second part of the original word was simply dropped and the
initial Russian k in krashenina was changed into c-; kurchatovium employing the native
noun forming suffix -ium instead of the Russian kurchatovi; pontian employing the adjective
forming suffix -ian instead of the Russian ponticheski; Vepsian using the noun forming
suffix -ian instead of the Russian Vépsi (similarly Zyrian); akathisia with the noun forming
suffix -ia instead of the Czech akathisie; Glagolitic with the adjective forming suffix -ic
instead of the Serbo-Croat glagolica.
Even a superficial look at the above examples reveals that there are no instances of an
English prefix or infix and a borrowed root included. The reason is quite simple: there aren’t
any to be found, since the OED (electronic edition) does not contain such an entry. There
are examples where the initial letter is changed, as in astatki from Russian ostatki
pronounced with an initial a, where the pronunciation in the source language results in the
change of spelling in the matrix language; or in caback where the initial c- is used in English
instead of the Russian k- (kabak) to make the spelling more English-like. However, these
are not adapted loans with a native prefix added to the foreign root, but simple loans that
underwent a slight cosmetic change.
Last but not least, from the point of view of frequency, are the loan translations or
calques, which appear every now and then almost as peculiarities in the corpus of
predominantly simple and adapted loans. They are different from the other two types in that
they were important enough to be translated into English, either because of high frequency
of use, significance of the field of use or the object or notion in question, people who
imported them and were first to use them, because words with similar meanings existed in
the borrowing language, or because objects or phenomena denoted by these words were
part of both cultures. For instance, the compound fellow-traveller, which primarily means
“one who travels along with another”, is the English rendering of the Russian poputchik,
“one who sympathizes with the Communist movement without actually being a party
member.” In this example, the initial sense of “companionship” in fellow-traveller is used to
convey the communist “comradeship” of poputchik. The borrowed sense does not have a
corresponding simple loan, and has nowadays almost completely lost its communist Russian
connotation, being used also with other political systems and convictions.
Loan translations are, as the corpus shows, few and seem to occur where there is some sort
of linguistic or cultural parallel between the two languages that calls for a translation. For
example, the already mentioned sharka, a plum disease first described by a Bulgarian
scientist, “characterized by yellow blotches on the leaves and pockets of dead tissue in the
fruit.” (OED) The description resembles something the English are familiar with: pox.
Therefore, since it occurs on plums, the logical translation is that of plum pox. A second
cultural parallel that occurs with this example, arises from the fact that the disease itself is
not unknown to the British Isles, where it caused problems in the past.
If, on the other hand, an object or notion is so characteristic of the source environment that
by translating it the original meaning would be entirely lost, a translation does not occur.
For example, the term raskol denotes a specific event in the history of the Russian church,
when a schism occurred as a result of reforms instituted by Patriarch Nikon in 1667. A
translation like separation is of course possible but pointless, since it does not refer to the
particular separation in question.
The corpus contains also instances which in their peculiarity appear similar to those from
the previous paragraph, but are in fact quite different. Namely, when a word like tselina
(land as the subject of an intensive agricultural programme by the Soviet government since
1954) is translated into virgin land and becomes a calque, it is because it has discarded its
purely Russian connotation, and has acquired a more general meaning referring to any
previously uncultivated land. Here, in contrast to the previous example of raskol, we
witness a transfer of ideas from one language to another, whereby the original implication
gives way to a broader semantic understanding of the term.
The frequency of loan translations is also not affected by the “obscurity” of a word, in
terms of its pronunciation or spelling. This does not appear to be a reason enough to
produce an English rendering, for there are words in the corpus more difficult to pronounce
and spell than for example sharka or subbotnik, that have not acquired their translation into
English: the Polish witzchoura, szlachta, britzka, and the Russian yamstchik.
3.2.2 Summary
In this chapter we have dealt with the threefold division of loanwords into simple and
adapted loans and loan translations. We have seen that Slavic borrowings include all three
types with all the characteristics of each type, and discussed their frequency in the corpus.
In the next chapter we shall take a closer look at Sir James Murray’s division of loanwords
into four stages of “citizenship”: the casual, the alien, the denizen, and the natural.
3.3 ANALYSIS OF THE CORPUS ACCORDING TO MURRAY’S DIVISION OF
LOANWORDS INTO CASUAL, ALIEN, DENIZEN AND NATURAL
Sir James Murray is considered by many the father of the Oxford English Dictionary
(OED). He was the editor and the driving force behind the vast undertaking, and completed
about half of the dictionary (sections A-D, H-K, O,P and T) himself. In addition to his work
on the OED, he served as president of the Philological Society (1878-1880, 1882-1884) and
wrote a number of articles on the English language, the most famous being the one
published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1878).
In the general explanations and introduction to the first edition of OED, Murray listed four
stages of word “citizenship”: the casual, the alien, the denizen and the natural. They
follow each other from the least to the most naturalised.
The casuals appear only in travel writings and accounts of foreign countries, but citations
must nevertheless be collected for them in order to record the early history of the word that
may at a later stage become a full-grown member of the language. Aliens are names of
foreign objects, titles, etc., which we have to use, and for which we have no native
equivalents; they retain their foreign appearance and to some extent their foreign sound.
Denizens are borrowings from foreign languages which have acquired full English
citizenship. Most words when first borrowed are aliens, but if they survive they are
gradually accommodated to the language which borrows them and become denizens.
Naturals, members of the last stage of citizenship, are words that look, sound and feel like
being in the language forever. They have lost their foreign character, and it is difficult to
recognize that which was once alien in them.
In the following paragraphs we shall apply Murray’s division to Slavic borrowings. We may
assume that most of them will fall under aliens and denizens, with a few casuals also to be
expected, whereas naturals will be hard to come by. The aim of this analysis is to examine
to what extent Slavic words have become part of the English vocabulary, from the point of
view of naturalization, i.e. whether and how many are considered “English-proper”, and if
not, how close they are to achieving such status.
3.3.1 Slavic casuals
As we have noted in one of the previous chapters, words of Slavic origin often entered
English via itineraries of travellers and memoirs, written by people who lived and worked in
a Slavic country for a considerable period of time. Some of these words fall into the
category of casuals.
They are all simple loans with minor sound and spelling changes, appearing perhaps only
two or three times in an English text: caback (a Russian dram-shop or pot-house), chark (a
small Russian glass or cup), choom (a conical hut), kvass (a fermented beverage; rye beer),
ostrog (a house or village in Siberia, surrounded by a palisade or wall, and serving as a fort
or prison), peach or peech (a Russian stove), tarantass (a four-wheeled Russian travelling-
carriage), telega (a four-wheeled Russian cart) and olen (a red deer), all from Russian.
We have expected to find a few more examples in our analysis, but only the ones
enumerated correspond in their “obscureness” to the formal criterion under which a casual
is defined: they all appear in travel writings only. However, this proved not to be a reason
enough to characterize them as casuals, since many other words also appearing in such
works did not qualify for this category. Therefore, we looked also at whether the example is
accompanied by a translation or a description in the quotes for better understanding, the age
of the quotes – the older the better, and last but not least, the object denoted by the word
itself – here the object was considered from the point of view of its present day relevance,
i.e. whether it still has any bearing on the people in the land of its origin, and in this context,
whether it is at least known, if not used, in the English speaking world. The rationale behind
these criteria is that they all point to the somewhat “veiled” character of casuals, and only
after looking at all of them a word could, with some reassurance, be designated as a casual;
many examples that at a first glance appeared to fall under this category, in the end turned
out to be aliens.
In trying to understand the reasons for such a small number of Slavic casuals, we should
look at the life of loanwords, once they enter the matrix or the recipient language. As
already described, most of the loans, however obscure, go through certain modifications
which make them, in our case, more English like. Besides spelling and pronunciation, they
also adopt English morphology with the characteristic inflections of the corresponding part
of speech. This process influences their use, in that they no longer appear only in accounts
of foreign countries, but also in literary works, newspapers and other writings. For example,
the word knout, denoting a special kind of whip or scourge, eventually found its way to
Tennyson’s “Maud” (1855):
Similarly, kibitka (a circular tent, but also a Russian wagon or sledge) appeared in the Daily
News (1899 14 Jan. 2/1):
These and other loanwords passed from being mere “just-in-case” dictionary entries with an
example or two to their name, to words of at least alien, if not denizen status. Only a
relatively small number continued on as casuals, with the objects or notions they denote
never becoming part of the English culture and way of life, but remaining mentions in the
vast body of the English lexicon.
As already mentioned, it is characteristic of the majority of Slavic borrowings that they were
and are adopted directly as aliens and not as casuals first. This trait of loanwords results
from an instant demand for naming an object or notion as it appears in the borrowing
culture; recording it for future reference is in most cases simply not enough.
Aliens proved to be the most substantial group of Slavic loanwords, including adapted as
well as simple loans: acmeism, aesopic, arsheen, artel, astatki, babushka, bidarka, blin,
borsch, buran, bylina, Cadet, chernozem, copeck, coulibiac, dacha, feldscher, gusli,
kalashnikov, kasha, kazachoc, kissel, koumiss, lunokhod, mazut, miryachit, moujik, oblast,
okrug, pelmeny, ploschadka, polatouche, prisiadka, prospekt, samovar, sastruga, sevruga,
shapka, shchi, sovkhoz, tamizdat, thermokarst, tokamak, tur, tvorog, yeri, zubr as only a
few examples from Russian; akathisia, dumka, furiant, kolach, koruna, redowa, Taborite,
Sokol, Strouhal from Czech; Gamza, lev, Pomak, rakija, Sobranye, stotinka from
Bulgarian; Glagolitic, chetnik, dinar, gusle, hum (Physical Geography), kolo, polje, ponor,
Skupstina, slatko, slava, slivovitz, stokavian, tamburitza, Ustashi, uvala, vila (wili, willi),
zadruga from Serbo-Croat; bobac, britzka, gmina, hetman, kielbasa, Krakowiak,
kromesky, Mariavite, mazurka, oberek, Piast, polacca, polka (clothing item), pospolite,
schapska, Sejm, starosty, szlachta, witzchoura, zloty from Polish; gopak from Ukrainian;
and bismar, calash, gherkin, heyduck, hospodar, knez, lasset, pivo, shabracque, suckeny,
tabor, voivode, zibeline as examples of undetermined Slavic origin.
In contrast to casuals, these words, although some of them are admittedly obscure and
nowadays archaic, appeared not only in travel accounts but also in works of literature,
newspapers, and in scientific writing. For example, the Russian prisiadka can be found in
the following quotes in the OED:
1938 B. Schönberg tr. Sachs' World Hist. of Dance i. 28: “Wilder still are the Bavarian
Schuhplattler and the Ukrainian prisjádka with their heel stamping.” (science)
1972 Daily Tel. 14 Aug. 6/9: “They burst out into wild Ukrainian dancing with every
possible variation of the squatting step prisyadka.” (newspaper)
1977 J. Wambaugh Black Marble (1978) xii. 292: “I don’t care if I’m six feet tall” Valnikov
said, squatting on his haunches, trying some prisiadka kicks that put him temporarily on his
ass.” (literature)
We see that the word has transcended from a simple note in a dictionary to a vocabulary
item of interest not only to inquisitive yet incidental linguists, but also to a wider public of
dance enthusiasts, newspaper readers and lit-fans. It managed to penetrate into the English
culture and settle itself as the name of something the English know and in some cases use,
but do not designate using their own lexemes. Prisiadka, as other aliens, succeeded in
making a step towards English citizenship, but its fate is still that of being left somewhere
queuing in an endless line of anxious newcomers, perhaps never achieving the ultimate goal
of becoming a legitimate member of English lexicon.
This may, for some, appear a gloomy future for these words. However, in connection with
that, we must bear in mind the element of time and its influence on the vocabulary of a
language, which makes such outcome inevitable.
Namely, these lexical items appeared in English at certain points in history and many were
used only in and around those particular periods. A good example is the Russian arsheen, a
measure of length used in Russia and Turkey. The key word here is “used”, which is to be
read as past simple and not present, since the Russian metric system no longer employs
such obsolete measures. Let us look at the quotes, again from the OED:
1734 Treaty in Magens Insurances II. 592: “English Cloth two Copyks in Rixdollars for
each Archine.”
1783 Martyn Geog. Mag. II. 40: “The arshine or Russian ell, equal to twenty-eight and one-
tenth inches English.”
1819 J. Q. Adams in C. Davies Metric Syst. (1871) iii. 185: “Suwarrow said to his troops,
“A soldier’s step is an arsheen.”
1881 Nature XXV. 88: “The new system of weights and measures in Turkey, the archine, is
exactly equal to the French metre.”
We see that they are all from the 18 th and 19th century, but none from the 20th, which points
to the fact that the object in question has gone out of use, making the word denoting it
obsolete as well. Such development leaves little if no hope of arsheen and similar aliens
ever achieving the “timelessness” of lexemes that endure in a language for centuries 4. In
other words, they will almost certainly never acquire the status of denizens or naturals, and
will gradually become what casuals already are: mere entries in bulky dictionaries, with
their position deteriorating with the passage of time, to the extent that we will eventually no
longer be able to regard them as pretenders to anything but linguistic remnants of the years
gone by. As such we could term them historical aliens, i.e. borrowings once used in their
original form, but later becoming redundant parallel to the gradual disappearance of objects
or notions they denoted.
Contrary to the development from the previous paragraph, many aliens do achieve a certain
degree of “timelessness” that promises later full naturalization. For example, the Russian
coulibiac, the Bulgarian rakija., or the Serbo-Croat uvala:
1970 Simon & Howe Dict. Gastron. 237/1: “Koulibiac, a Russian type of pie.”
1980 J. Hone Flowers of Forest i. 21: “Playing chess over a bottle of rakia somewhere in
Yugoslavia.”
1970 R. J. Small Study of Landforms iv. 152: “In many areas closely adjoining sotchs have
amalgamated, through lateral extension, to give larger depressions comparable with the
uvalas of the Karst proper.”
Characteristically, the chosen examples denote a dish, a drink and a trait of nature, all of
which are things that carry along an underlying sense of duration; first food and drink with
their preparation, which are of essential and permanent interest to human beings, and then
nature, although disposed to alteration, presenting a continuum in a lifetime of an average
individual. Contrastively, words from areas that are subject to frequent change and are
socially conditioned, such as economy, government or metric systems, do not seem to be
able to stand the test of time.
As it is to be expected with words, there are also examples, such as perestroika and
glasnost, which for some reason or other, do not let themselves be influenced by the
passage of time. They are adopted very quickly as aliens, and do not require years to
become denizens.
If we concentrate on the above mentioned cases, we see that in the last two decades from
their point of entry into English in the 1970s and 80s 5, the spelling and pronunciation of
perestroika and glasnost haven’t changed dramatically, which makes them similar to aliens.
What has changed, and why we ultimately defined them as denizens, is their meaning.
Namely, both terms are associated with the political and economic reforms of Mikhail
Gorbachov from the 1980s. The former word stands for “the restructuring or reform of the
Soviet economic and political system”, and the latter for “the policy of public frankness and
accountability” (Collins English Dictionary-CED). Both words were borrowed into English
with these primary meanings, as is apparent from the earlier quotes (OED):
1981 Summary World Broadcasts: Soviet Union 26 Feb. c24: “They are outlined in the 26th
April 1979 decision of the CPSU Central Committee. This is a long-term document.
Essentially it deals with restructuring (Russian: perestroyka).”
1981 N.Y. Times 13 Mar. a7/1: “The Russians, it seems, have rediscovered the value of
Lenin's dictum that glasnost, the Russian word for openness or publicity, is a desirable form
of conduct.”
1986 Scotsman 9 May 10/1: “What seemed to be at risk was Mr. Gorbachev’s glasnost
policy, the essence of which is more openness.”
1986 Sunday Tel. 9 Nov. 2/6: “I can see Mr Gorbachev on television going on about
something he calls Perestroika, roughly translated as “the restructuring”.
May 13 Economist 46: “Indian perestroika is at its most radical in the western state of
Maharasthra, whose capital is Bombay. Maharasthra’s sharp change of course was
announced late last month.”
1989 Oct 8 The Ottawa Citizen A-8/1 (editorial): “The ink is barely dry on President
Frederik de Klerk’s order not to break up lawful, peaceful protests in South Africa and
there’s already talk of “Pretoriastroika” and a “Pretoria spring.”
As for glasnost, it began to be used also in connection with other countries apart from
Russia, that were and are experiencing a similar favourable turn of events:
1987 Los Angeles Times 30 May i. 4/1 (heading): “Life is still hard under glasnost,
Vietnamese style.”
1987 Jerusalem Post Mag. 19 June 6/5: “On the emigration front, the era of glasnost has
seen decidedly mixed results.”
The examples of perestroika and glasnost illustrate the whimsicality of the lexicon, which
ultimately discards some but accepts other borrowings, giving so no easy answers and
allowing no universalities. The reasons for such a character lie outside the language itself,
and are to be sought in the society. To exemplify, we shall turn again to the above instances
of perestroika and glasnost.
It is well known that they were used as catchwords during the peaceful political and
economic reforms in the USSR, which subsequently caused an avalanche of similar events in
other countries behind the Iron Curtain. Both terms were instantly adopted by the West and
hence by the English-speaking world, which, as we have discussed in one of the previous
chapters, readily accepted any novelty from the communist realm. This initial alien period
soon ended with the acquisition of additional meanings, making these loans true denizens.
What happened in this case, was that the external circumstances in the society were
favourable for perestroika and glasnost to be adopted so rapidly into English, and to acquire
such a generalizing meaning. This set them apart from similar alien-loans like lunokhod,
sovkhoz or kalashnikov, which despite their communist background never made the
breakthrough to the denizen status.
The conclusion that presents itself almost self-evidently, is that it is between aliens and
denizens that an invisible borderline exists, separating borrowings into two groups: those
that we perceive as foreign on the one hand, and those that we already accept, although not
entirely, as part of our lexicon on the other. In the next chapter we shall start dealing with
the latter.
In the literature, denizens are regarded as words that have acquired full English citizenship.
Indicatively, they are altered in terms of spelling and pronunciation so as to look and sound
English. We have discovered that whereas this is true of many denizens, there are also
others that still retain their foreign appearance, but undergo significant changes in meaning,
clearly distinguishing them from aliens (the familiar perestroika and glasnost examples).
The following surprisingly substantial list illustrates this diversity within the category of
denizens: achtaragdite, agit-prop, apparatchik, Bolshevik, Bolshevist, cancrinite,
Cesarewitch, Checen, Cheka, Cheremis, Chuckchee, Circassian, Cominform, droog,
ferganite, hydrotroilite, innelite, intelligentsia, irinite, Ivan, kalistrontite, karakul, kolkhoz,
Kremlin, kurchatovium, mammoth, mendelevium, nielsbohrium, podzol, pogrom, Russ,
Russia, Russian, samizdat, steppe, taiga, tsar, tundra, ukase, vodka, yurt as only a few
examples from Russian; howitzer, Dobro, koktaite, Pilsener, polka, vrbaite from Czech;
Bulgar from Bulgarian; cravat, Morlach, hussar, pandour, Serb, Croat, paprika, takovite
from Serbo-Croat; horde, Kashube, Lech, marrowsky, Polack, Pole, pulk, uhlan from
Polish; Slovak from Slovak; gley from Ukrainian; sable, siskin, Slovene, tsatske, vampire
and Vlach as examples of undetermined Slavic origin.
In order to fully understand the choice of words we have designated as denizens, some
additional clarification is in order. First of all, the reader will have noticed many loans
ending in the noun forming suffix –ite, characteristic of, among other things, names of
rocks and minerals. The total number of such examples in the corpus is around sixty (most
of them Russian), which is why we have not included all of them in the above list. In most
cases, it is difficult to recognize the Slavic origin of these borrowings since they have been
significantly modified in terms of spelling and pronunciation. In addition to the English-like
appearance, they denote objects which are of unlimited duration and immune to cultural
influences that could affect their existence. Consequently, the future of these words in
English is secure. Although used by a relatively small number of people, they will remain in
the language, and in more or less the same form in which they appear at the present
moment.
Secondly, the corpus contains an equally substantial group of borrowings relating to, or
characteristic of a nation or ethnic group, its people, or their language (again most of them
have been adopted from Russian). We have categorized them as denizens for similar reasons
as minerals. Namely, although nations are born anew and are being wiped out, the way they
are called is seldom if at all altered. The ethnonym under which the nation is known is
either that which the people call themselves, or what others, usually their neighbours, call
them. Once established, it is adopted and adapted (spelling, pronunciation) by other
nations, thus becoming an integral part of their language; a part of which they are almost
unaware as not being of their native linguistic origin.
Thirdly, there are borrowings included in the list, which arguably look and sound like aliens.
However, as we have briefly discussed in the introductory paragraph to Slavic denizens,
they appear in English with meanings sometimes completely different from those that we
define as primary. At this point, we shall not attempt any semantic analysis, which is part of
the next chapter dealing with the changes of meaning, but only enumerate some examples
with quotes, to illustrate the point:
a) Agit-prop: 1934 N. & Q. CLXVI. 73/1: “The A[g]itprop, the central organ for
propaganda and agitation, has sent word round to writers, newspapers and publishers, that
there is to be an organisation for mass-laughter.” (primary meaning)
1959 Spectator 6 Nov. 629/2: “The whole tone [of the play] is ten times heavier and cornier
than any of the agitprop from the old Unity Theatre.” (transferred meaning)
b) Cesarewitch: Title as heir to the imperial Russian throne of the prince who became
Alexander II. (primary meaning)
1839 Sporting Mag. 2nd. Ser. XIX. 263: “Newmarket.-His Imperial Highness the Grand
Duke of Russia having presented the Jockey Club with the sum of 300, to be run for
annually, …”
1891 G. Chetwynd Racing Remin. Ibid. 31: “At the next Newmarket meeting Cardinal York
won the Cesarewitch by six lengths.” (transferred meaning)
We believe that the quotes clearly show how these and similar loans have, despite their
foreign appearance, assumed new identity in the English language, thereby losing their alien
characteristic of simply naming an object or notion for which no native designation exists.
What is more, they have altered their meaning so that an English speaker no longer
associates them only with foreignness, but also with some new, even peculiarly English
concepts.
An essentially formal reason for including any of the already mentioned loans in the above
list of denizens, was that a word is accompanied by many compounds and derivatives,
which points to a high degree of naturalization7. For example, the Russian tsar and vodka,
and the Slavonic vampire.
vodka: vodka bottle, vodka flask, vodka glass, vodka Collins, vodka gimlet, vodka martini,
vodka shop, vodka-tonic, vodkatini (a contraction from vodka-martini).
The great extent of naturalization which these words have achieved is distinctly evident
from the above collection of new vocabulary items, denoting various new meanings. In this
way tsar, vodka and vampire have made a strong mark on the English language; a mark so
prominent that they no longer feel as denizens, but almost as naturals. Almost. They are
somewhere in-between, neither black nor white, but of the many shades of grey the English
lexicon is full of. During our survey, we came across a number of similar examples, which
we will enumerate at this point: constructivism, cubo-futurism, defamiliarization,
disinformation, diversionist, ethonym, folkloristics, idiogram, informatics, jarovization,
karyotype, liquidate (in the sense of “to kill”), pedology, phytosociology from Russian;
akathisia, ferritin, foreground, robot from Czech; macrolide, metapsychics,
psychophonetics, sherryvallies from Polish; doodle (verb - to play the bagpipes) as a loan of
undetermined Slavic origin.
The reader will admit some degree of surprise in his/her mind, after having read the above
set of examples. Especially words like robot, sherryvallies or doodle, baffle once their
origin is disclosed.
The reason for the majority of these items to appear so English lies in the fact that they are
similar to English scientific vocabulary, coined from Greek and Latin words or roots:
idiogram, metapsychics, constructivism, akathisia, phytosociology, disinformation. This
shows us firstly, that it is not only English that makes use of classical languages to create
learned expressions in various fields of science, and secondly, that English demonstrates no
hesitation when it comes to adopting such items from foreign, in our case Slavic, languages.
At this point, we should not be misled by the appearance and sound of this last group of
Slavic loanwords, which are truly English-like, into considering them native-like words. The
objects and notions they convey were discovered, used and described first by foreigners,
before ever reaching the English language and consciousness, and are therefore foreign by
definition. We may in fact ask ourselves a justified question: are there any borrowings at all
from Slavic languages that are closer to nativeness than denizens ?
The answer to the question from the previous chapter is not a satisfying one. We were
hoping to be able to present a list, however short, of Slavic naturals in the English
language. Our good intentions were soon shattered by the realization that the foreign
element in the words from the corpus was still strong enough to prevent such
categorization.
Why is that so? We believe that with every single loan in the corpus, not enough time has
passed from its entrance into English till the present moment for the borrowing to lose its
Slavic character either in spelling, sound or meaning, to the extent that we could regard it as
being native. In order to clarify our point, let us provide some contrast in the form of the
English word law.
Everyday users of the language do not stop to ponder over its origin, for it sounds and
looks as being there forever, its meaning all too familiar to everyone, and its presence in our
lives secured. Despite all that, the word is not of Anglo-Saxon, but of Scandinavian origin.
It is a Scandinavian borrowing (Davis&Klinar 1996: 136), but we can undoubtedly
acknowledge it as a natural. Similarly, the French borrowings city, state, large and play
(Davis&Klinar 1996: 141), which not many would recognize as being of foreign descent,
fall into the same group. As Klinar puts it: “English vocabulary is permeated by French
everywhere. Most of the earlier borrowings are not felt to be alien in any sense. The
monosyllables in the following list are among the 250 most frequently used words in the
language and are as thoroughly English as any that could be mentioned.” (Davis&Klinar
1996: 141)
Slavic borrowings in English, even the most naturalized ones, are still a long way from
achieving such status, and only time will tell if any make it that far at all.
3.3.5 Summary
Our premise at the beginning of the analysis, according to Sir Murray’s division, turned out
to be quite accurate. A few casuals, a lot of aliens, a somewhat similar number of denizens,
and no naturals among the gathered Slavic borrowings in the English language, is the more
or less expected final outcome. But let us ignore the statistics, and focus on what is behind
it. Namely, the analysis has shown that Slavic languages, especially Russian, contribute and
did so in the past, to the English lexicon words that are not just “dead”, non-developing
material, but lexical items with a flourishing life of their own, outside their primary linguistic
environment. As such, they bring in new cultural aspects and meanings, in this way adding
to the effect of great etymological diversity of the English language.
3.4 SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CORPUS: CHANGES IN MEANING
Throughout the paper, we have been referring to the primary meaning of an individual
Slavic borrowing, as it appeared in English with the first occurrence of the word. This
primary meaning, or proper, essential, natural, and primitive, as it is also termed in
literature (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 220, 233; OED, Volume 1 1989: xxvii), is in our
case intended merely as a convenient wording for describing the semantic situation at the
point of entrance into English. The term is in itself misleading, for: “In the absolute sense of
the term a word has no essential meaning. Words are conventional signs. They mean what
they are intended to mean by the speaker and understood to mean by the hearer. … any
word - whatever its origin - bears, at any moment, that meaning which the speakers of the
language have tacitly agreed to assign to it. And this meaning may or may not have a direct
logical connection with the original sense of the root.” (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 220,
233)
Therefore, a Slavic borrowing may have been taken into English already in a figurative,
transferred, or specialized use, as an ecclesiastical, legal, grammatical or medical term, that
being the “primary” meaning in which it manifested itself in the matrix or recipient
language.
In our semantic analysis, we shall depart from this “primary8” meaning, and describe
different kinds of semantic change, as they appear with Slavic borrowings in the English
language.
The examination will be more or less limited to four general categories of semantic change:
extension or generalization, and narrowing or specialization (contraction), as semantic
changes in a horizontal dimension; amelioration and pejoration (deterioration) as changes
on a vertical scale (Crystal 1995: 138; Webster’s Word Histories 1989: Introduction). By
looking into these processes we hope to illustrate the evolution that certain Slavic
borrowings have gone through since their introduction into the English lexicon.
A word can be generalized to different degrees. It may retain various levels of connection
with its basic meaning, or it may “become so very general that it ceases to distinguish
anything in particular from everything else.” (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 241) An
example of the latter, mentioned by the same authors, is the word thing: “Its special modern
sense of “inanimate object (usually regarded as its “real meaning”) is certainly due to
generalization. The Anglo-Saxon noun thing often meant “terms” and also “a council of
court,” and the verb thingiam, “to make conditions,”, “to arrange.” The word is thought to
be cognate with L. tempus, “the (fitting) time,” “the right moment.” If so, we may feel
confident that the oldest sense at which we can arrive in English is “that which is agreed
upon as fitting.” From the “terms” of a bargain to a concrete “object of value” is a short
step,- and from this to “anything” (actual or ideal) is no long stride.” (Greenough &
Kittredge 1961: 235, 236)
With Slavic borrowings such extreme cases do not occur. There is always some trait of the
basic meaning present in the new extended sense. Let us observe some characteristic
instances9 with quotes, whereby the first quote always conveys the primary meaning:
a) Apparatchik basically denoted a member of the apparat (the party machine of the
Communist party in Russia), and a Communist agent or spy (a meaning that was developed
already in Russia by the party members themselves). The meaning was eventually extended
to refer also to a member of a political party in any country, who is responsible for the
execution of policy. A further generalization occurs in the sense of a functionary of a public
or private organization, where the political overtone is evidently fading, but still present.
Quotes:
1963 Camb. Rev. 16 Feb. 277/1: “The party bureaucrat, or apparatchik, is distinguished
from the ordinary party member by his professional attachment to the party, for as a rule he
devotes himself exclusively to party activity. “
1973 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 5 July 5/1: “The United States was indeed being
pushed in the direction of a police state. The pushers were not mere apparatchiks such as
John Dean, but President Nixon and his closest associates.”
1985 Sunday Times 27 Jan. 38/5: “The radio programmes were put together in the privacy
of his own computer-equipped studio at home, away from the controlling influence of BBC
apparatchiks.”
1918 E. J. Dillon Eclipse of Russia 10: “The Bolsheviks at once outbid the Cadets.”
1926 W. R. Inge Lay Thoughts 29: “The cliques of literary Bolsheviks, who seem to be
inspired by a destructive hatred of civilisation.”
Similar “communist” loanwords from Russian that were subject to generalization, whereby
their meaning was extended to refer to objects or people with similar traits in general, are:
cheka, intelligentsia, kolkhoz, samizdat, Ivan, Kremlin, Maximalist (another term for
Bolshevik), Menshevik, Minimalist (in the sense of Menshevik), Soviet, sputnik, etc.
c) An interesting case in point is the loanword kulak, which was first adopted in pre-
Revolution Russia, in the sense of a well-to-do farmer or trader. With the onset of
communism this meaning changed, and the word was borrowed anew in the sense of a
peasant-proprietor working for his own profit. We can see how the connotation of
independence and relative wellbeing is present in both periods. In English the meaning was
extended to “successful and independent farmers” in general. Quotes:
1877 D. M. Wallace Russia (ed. 2) I. vii. 159: “Not a few industrial villages have thus fallen
under the power of the Kulaki - literally Fists - as these monopolists are called.”
1934 G. B. Shaw On Rocks 164: “They [sc. the Soviet government] also proscribed the
kulak, the able, hardheaded, hardfisted farmer who was richer than his neighbors.”
1957 Observer 10 Nov. 5/8: “The peasants [in China] have been “voluntarily”
collectivised,but there has been no Russian-style campaign for the “elimination of the kulak
as a class.”
d) A somewhat older loan is tsar, with its basic meaning of the title of the autocrat or
emperor of Russia. In the process of generalization, the underlying connotation of power,
domination and limitless authority, extended to people in general possessing such qualities.
In addition to that, a comparatively stronger sense of “tyrant” also came to be associated
with this borrowing. Quotes:
1890 Morfill Russia 56: “Ivan assuming the cognizance of the double-headed eagle, and
partially taking the title of Tsar, the complete assumption of it being the achievement of
Ivan IV.”
1893 McClure's Mag. I. 375: “He was being held up as “The Czar”---a man whose iron
heels were crushing out American popular government.”
1970 Guardian 18 Apr. 10/6: “ Many [American] Presidents establish a staff “Czar” to cut
down on “unnecessary” memos and contacts.”
e) The word mammoth, which is another Russian borrowing, basically denotes a large
extinct species of elephant, formerly native in Europe and northern Asia. In the United
States the first generalization of the loan took place, where mammoth became a
superordinate, often applied also to the fossil mastodon, another extinct species of elephant.
The second extension of meaning is connected with the characteristic strength and huge size
of the animal, which led to the use of the word to describe anything of huge size, and also
to its use as an adjective, denoting something comparable to the mammoth in size. Quotes:
1850 Lyell 2nd Visit U.S. II. 197: “The fossil remains of the mammoth (a name commonly
applied in the United States to the mastodon).”
1863 A. C. Ramsay Phys. Geog. xxviii. 463: “Man, the Mammoth, and other extinct
mammalia, were contemporaneous.”
1894 Cornh. Mag. Mar. 269: “Bayle’s “Dictionnaire Historique”, 5 vols. folio, or any
kindred mammoth among books.”
f) The geographical term Muscovy, originally denoting a Russian principality (13th to 16th
centuries), of which Moscow was the capital, came to be applied by extension to Russia
generally, and is used attributively in the name of things belonging to, orginating or
produced in and obtained from Russia. In this case the economic and political power of the
capital, with which most of the commerce with the West took place, provided such a strong
association as to substitute for established geographical names. Quotes:
1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 211: “Mr. Sage found muscovy glass infusible in the
strongest heat.”
1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 740: “Substituting varnished metallic gauze in the
room of Muscovy talc, a kind of mica.”
g) The original meaning of pogrom also has a negative connotation of death and
devastation. It denotes an organized massacre in Russia for the destruction or annihilation
of any body or class: originally and especially applied to those directed against the Jews
(specialization of meaning). In generalized use pogrom refers to an organized, officially
tolerated, attack on any community or group. Quotes:
1919 N. Sokolow Hist. Zionism II. p. li,: “Not even the dark ages extracted so heavy a toll
of Jewish blood: something like 1400 pogroms took place all over the Ghetto.”
1971 Sunday Times 13 June 12/4: “The army units, after clearing out the rebels, pursued the
pogrom in the towns and villages.”
h) Examples from languages other than Russian are less frequent, as is correspondingly
smaller their number in the corpus. The first we are to examine is the Czech Pilsener. The
loanword originally denoted the origin of a beer (Czech. Plzen, a province and city in W.
Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.), but is nowadays by extension used, also in the Czech Republic
itself, as a designation for the type of beer, which is a pale-coloured lager beer with a strong
hop flavour. The actual beer from Plzen itself is known as Pils(e)ner Urquell. The word was
not adopted directly from Czech, but rather indirectly via German. Quotes:
1877 C. Schreiber Jrnl. 3 Aug. (1911) II. 49: “Much rain - no breakfasts in the garden and
Pilsner beer luncheons this year!”
1980 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 29 Mar. 916/1: “It [sc. class 2 beer] was available in two strengths-a
middle European Pilsner beer, and a somewhat stronger English lager type.”
2000 www.geocities.com/bohemianbeertours/czech_beers.htm :
“However, the dominant element of Czech beers is the hops. Saaz or
Zatek hops give a Czech pilsner its distinctive flavor. Each brewery
usually has several styles of pilsner.”
i) Another non-Russian, but subjectively the most “successful” Slavic loan is the Czech
robot. It was conceived by Karel Capek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots,
1920) It originally denoted one of the mechanical men and women in Capek’s play; hence, a
machine (sometimes resembling a human being in appearance) designed to function in place
of a living individual, especially one which carries out a variety of tasks automatically or
with a minimum of external impulse. By extension, the meaning reverted to human beings,
and so the word refers to a person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical. The
borrowing developed many derivatives and compounds, which all retained the original
connotation of automation. Quotes:
1923 Times 9 June 10/5: “If Almighty God had populated the world with Robots, legislation
of this sort might have been reasonable.”
1955 Times 27 July 9: “It might be a pretty compliment to the brothers Capek if we called
this new way of life robotry.”
1977 G. W. H. Lampe God as Spirit ii. 51: “The person who is “seized” by the Spirit is
thought of as a passive object, temporarily reduced to the status of a robot.”
1980 Times 1 July 19/5: “A real robot is programmable; it can be programmed to perform
different, and changing tasks. In 1978 Japan put 1,100 playback or programmable robots
into its factories.”
j) The loan hussar10 has been in English for quite some time. In the languages it was
adopted from, the word originally denoted a “free-lance” and a “freebooter”. In the second
half of the 15th century, it became applied to the Hungarian light horsemen, in which
application hussar became known and used in the Western European languages. Hence, the
name of light cavalry regiments formed in imitation of these, which were subsequently
introduced, and still exist, in most European armies, including that of Great Britain.
1768-74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 473: “Your infinitely-infinite monades in infinitely-never
single bodies, cannot get the better even of my light armature, my skipping scampering
hussars.”
1800 A. Carlyle Autobiog. 432: “He was a mere hussar, who had no steady views to direct
him.”
1802-16 C. James Milit. Dict. s.v.,: “There are also several regiments of hussars in the
British service.”
In the case of hussar, the negative connotation of the word, associated with negative moral
values and fighting, is clearly reflected in the loan’s generalization. Similar semantic change
occured also with the words pandoor and uhlan, which also basically denote an army
force.
k) Our last example in the section on generalization is vampire. The word has become quite
popular since its adoption in the 18th century, especially after the publication of the well-
known Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Its origin is somewhat obscure, but the loan is agreed upon
as being of Slavonic descent.
Vampire primarily denotes a supernatural being of an evil nature (in the original and usual
form of the belief, a reanimated corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by
drinking the blood of sleeping persons. Hence, a man or woman abnormally endowed with
similar habits. The vicious nature of the creature is reflected also in the generalized or
extended meaning of the borrowing, referring to a person of a malignant and loathsome
character, especially one who preys ruthlessly upon others, a vile and cruel blackmailer or
extortioner.
Another, perhaps less known generalization of vampire, is connected with the practice of
drinking blood supposedly performed by this being. The association this disagreeable act
evokes is that of annoyance and harassment, which is to some extent parallel to the feelings
we experience when we are bored, or being bored by someone else. Hence, a vampire is
also an intolerable bore or a tedious person.
Last but not least, the word is by extension applied also to miniature blood-sucking
monsters, mosquitoes. Quotes:
1813 Byron Giaour Note 38: “The freshness of the face, and the wetness of the lip with
blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire.”
1847 Mrs. A. Kerr tr. Ranke's Hist. Servia iv. 71: “Speedy death was the inevitable
consequence of such a visitation, and any one who so died became himself a vampyre.”
1862 B. Taylor Home & Abroad III. ii. 215: “In the German language there is no epithet
which exactly translates our word “bore”, or its intensification, “vampyre.”
1864 Geikie Life Woods iv. (1874) 58: “A sharp prick and the little vampire is drinking your
blood.”
1899 F. T. Bullen Log of Sea-waif 164: “The vampires who supplied them with liquor had
somehow obtained a claim upon all their wages.”
1968 Word Study Dec. 4/2: “A vampire is a woman who uses sex to facilitate the
acquisition of money or other signs of wealth.”
Generalization has proven to be a very frequent semantic change with Slavic borrowings,
although it never reaches the degree of extension of thing or picture, as described in the
opening remarks.
An interesting common trait of some of the examples is that they express an underlying
human trait which transfers itself from the original to the extended meaning. Others again
denote certain prominent objects which are famous or important enough to become
associated with a wider array of other, in some way related objects. Judging from these two
sets of examples, it seems that if the loan’s meaning is to be extended, the primary
denotation, but even more so connotation of the word has to be something special, unique,
strong or, quite the opposite, general enough, to earn such semantic change. Whether this
applies to all words equally (native or loan - Slavic or other), is a matter worth examining,
but is not the subject of our paper. Therefore, we shall leave this question open for others to
resolve.
In the next section an opposite process will be discussed, and we will also try to deduce a
rationale, speculative as it may be, behind its occurrence with Slavic loanwords.
English is full of such words. Affection meant “feeling” in Elizabethan English. Goods is
literally “good things.” Myth is merely the Greek for “story.” Meat was once “food” of any
kind. Deer was formerly any “animal.” (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 249)
Let us now look at Slavic borrowings and their specialized senses in the English language.
a) Our first example is the loan babushka, which originally meant “grandmother”. The
word was adopted into English already with a narrowed meaning, denoting a head covering
folded diagonally and tied under the chin, a kind of a “head-scarf”. This type of headwear
must have been, and probably still is, worn by Russian peasant women, providing the
association for the specialized use of the word. Quotes:
1938 Chatelaine Feb. 33/2: “The babushka is a peasant-sort of hood you wear over your
pretty curls.”
1681 Act Prot. Relig. Scotl. in Lond. Gaz. No. 1649/2: “All Sheriffs-Officers of the Mint,
Commissars and their Deputs, their Clerks and Fiscals.”
1921 Chambers's Jrnl. 151/1: “The Bolsheviks retreated in a panic, killing their own
commissars as they fled.”
1955 J. Carmichael tr. Sukhanov's Russ. Revol. i. iii. 62: “Braunstein proposed that
directives be given - for district committees to be formed, and for plenipotentiary
Commissars to be appointed in each district to restore order and direct the struggle against
anarchy and pogroms.”
c) The verb to liquidate11 comes from late Latin liquidat, and most frequently conveys the
meaning of to settle or pay off a debt, claim etc., and to terminate the operations of a
commercial firm, bankrupt estate, etc. The sense we are interested in comes from the
Russian likvidírovat, and means to put an end to, abolish, to stamp out, wipe out, and
ultimately to eliminate or kill. This special meaning emerged in the time of communist
regime, which ruthlessly did away with its enemies, true or imagined. The connection
between the senses is self-evident, and has as its focal point the notions of conclusion and
termination. Quotes:
1834 H. Martineau Moral iv. 135: “No effort should be spared to liquidate the National
Debt.”
1883 Manch. Exam. 27 Nov. 4/7 : “It has been decided to liquidate the Exchange Bank.”
1971 Sunday Times 13 June 12/6: “When the army units fanned out in Dacca on the evening
of March 25, many of them carried lists of people to be liquidated.”
d) The next example of specialization belongs to the group of lexemes Klinar terms
“author’s contributions” (Davis&Klinar 1996: 156). The borrowing droog, which originally
meant “friend”, was brought into the language by Anthony Burgess, an English novelist and
critic. He gave the word a completely new and specialized sense of a member of a gang, a
young ruffian, or an accomplice or henchman of a gang-leader. The only association left
between the basic and specialized sense is that of accompaniment and alliance, characteristic
of friendship - like relations. Quotes:
1962 A. Burgess’ Clockwork Orange i. 1: “There was me, that is Alex, and my three
droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim.”
1984 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Apr. 402/2: “How long ago it seems since the New York Times
referred to the spray-can droogs of the subways as “little Picassos.”
e) Kasha was adopted from Russia in its original meaning of a gruel or porridge made from
cooked buckwheat or other meals or cereals. The specialized meaning developed in English
is associated with the colour of this dish, describing it as a beige colour resembling that of
buckwheat groats. Quotes:
1958 Hayward & Harari tr. Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago ii. ix. 270: “I'll get Uncle Yury to stay
to dinner and take the kasha out of the oven.”
1971 Guardian 19 Jan. 9/3: “Principal colours are navy, “Kasha” (a Russian buckwheat
porridge beige), and “smoke”.
f) Another example where the sense but not the form was adopted, is the compound fellow-
traveler, used as a noun and also as a verb to fellow-travel. As we have already noted in
the section on calques, the specialized meaning of fellow-traveller, which primarily means
one who travels along with another, is one who sympathizes with the Communist movement
without actually being a party member. In this example, the original sense of
“companionship” in fellow-traveller is used to convey the communist “comradeship” of
Trotsky’s original - poputchik. It is intriguing how this specialization of meaning is gaining
ground at the expense of the original sense, and has even acquired its own generalized
meaning in that it is being applied also to other political systems or convictions. Quotes:
1814 Wordsworth Excursion ii. 55: “ My Fellow Traveller said with earnest voice, As if the
thought were but a moment old, That I must yield myself without reserve.”
1952 A. Wilson Hemlock & After 147: “Bernard, if not a fellow-traveller, was certainly the
perfect material for Communist propaganda.”
1963 Observer 18 Aug. 20/8: “The Germans who fellow-travelled with Hitler in the 1930s
were guilty of a gross dereliction of national duty.”
g) An example from a Slavic language other than Russian is the Polish Polack, which
basically denotes a native or inhabitant of Poland. It is in fact a less common term for a
Pole. The word has two specialized meanings, the first being the designation for a Jew from
Poland; and the second somewhat derogatory sense of a Polish immigrant or person of
Polish descent, chiefly limited to North America in its use. Quotes:
1909 Cent. Dict. (Suppl.): “Polack, a name given to the Jews of the Polish provinces, by
their Lithuanian co-religionists.”
1922 M. F. Liddell in Contemp. Rev. Dec. 770: “Danzig fears and hates the “Polacks” and
still more the French.”
1952 F. L. Allen Big Change iii. 53: “They were scornfully known as Dagoes, Polacks,
Hunkies, Kikes.”
h) The borrowing calash is of undetermined Slavic origin, and also has more than one
specialized meaning. The original meaning, with which all the specializations are connected,
denotes a kind of light carriage with low wheels, having a removable folding hood or top; in
Canada the vehicle with the same name has two wheels, is usually without a cover, and is
equipped with a seat for the driver on the splashboard.
The first specialization refers to the folding hood of such a carriage, and by extension also
the hood of a bathing machine, perambulator, etc. The characteristic shape of such a hood
resulted in the term being used also for a woman’s hood made of silk, supported with
whalebone or cane hoops, and projecting beyond the face, this being the loan’s second
specialized meaning.
In the case of calash, the borrowing began to be applied to a part of the entire object,
namely the hood, which in turn became the expression for a particular kind of headgear
worn by women. In other words, the semantic development went in the direction of
specialization acquiring its own specialized meaning. Quotes:
1849 Sir R. Wilson Life (1862) I. iii. 129: “Sleeping in the Calash.”
1852 Hawthorne Blithed. Rom. II. xii. 212: “Priscilla wore a calash, which she had flung
back from her head, leaving it suspended by the strings.”
i) Two special kinds of specialization, which are surprisingly frequent with Slavic
loanwords, are eponymy and toponymy12. The former denotes a process in which personal
names are used in the formation of new lexemes – the name is applied to a thing, because
the person in question invented, discovered or introduced it, or because the inventor named
it after himself. Everyday examples are Wellingtons, mackintosh, shrapnel, sandwich.
(Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 382)
The latter, however, refers to the derivation of new lexemes from place names – articles of
commerce are often named after the place from which they come or are supposed to come:
champagne, china, cashmere, magnet. (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 384)
The first Slavic example of eponymy is already a familiar one. Cesarewitch is originally the
title of heir to the imperial Russian throne of the prince who became Alexander II. In
England the name came to be applied to a long-distance handicap horse-race run at
Newmarket, instituted in 1839.
Markov comes from the surname of Andrei Andreevich Markov (1856-1922), a Russian
mathematician, who investigated stochastic processes for which the probabilities, at any one
time, of the different future states depend only on the existing state and not on how that
state was arrived at - Markov process. The term is used also attributively in the expressions
Markov chain, a Markov process in which there are a finite or countably infinite number of
possible states or in which transitions between states occur at discrete intervals of time, and
also one for which in addition the transition probabilities are constant (independent of time);
and Markov property, the characteristic property of Markov processes.
The next term also comes from a surname. Marrism, from the name of Nikolai Yakovlevich
Marr (1865-1934) a Russian linguist and archaeologist, denotes the linguistic theories
advocated by this scientist, in which language is regarded as a phenomenon of social class
rather than of nationality.
A less scientific example comes from Australian chefs, who as a reflection of her popularity,
used the name of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1885-1931), as the
designation for a dessert or cake, now usually one made with meringue, whipped cream,
and fruit – pavlova.
Puschkinia from the name of Apollos Mussin-Puschkin, Russian chemist and plant
collector, is the name of a small spring-flowering bulbous plant of the genus so called,
belonging to the family Liliacea, and bearing spikes of blue or white cup-shaped flowers.
From Czech comes Strouhal (Czech scientist Cenek Strouhal, 1850-1922), which is used
attributively in the phrase Strouhal number, denoting a dimensionless number used in the
study of the vibrations produced in a body by a fluid flowing past it.
Nipkow disc is a term originating from the name of its inventor Paul Nipkow (1860-1940),
Polish electrical engineer, who invented the device in 1884. It denotes a scanning disc used
in some early television transmitters and receivers.
The last and most curious example of eponymy we shall analyse is the name (proprietary in
the U.S.) for a type of acoustic guitar with steel resonating discs fitted inside the body
under the bridge, popular for playing country and western music. Dobro, as the instrument
is called, is an acronym from the name of its Czech-American inventors, the Do(pera)
Bro(thers). The coincidence with Czech dobro (the) good, a good thing, may also help to
explain the choice of this form.
In this case, we could talk about partial eponymy, since the second part of the acronym is
not a personal name at all.
Eponymy quotes:
1973 Times 11 Apr. 1/8: “He ran to get his kalashnikov (a Russian assault weapon) but
when he returned, the Israelis had burst through the door.”
1960 Kemeny & Snell Finite Markov Chains ii. 25: “A finite Markov chain is a finite
Markov process such that the transition probabilities pij(n) do not depend on n.”
1966 B. Collinder in Birnbaum & Puhvel Anc. Indo-European Dial. 199: “Marrism, which
was officially encouraged in Russia for political reasons, has raged as a kind of Asiatic flu in
some European universities west of the Iron Curtain.”
1975 Times 16 Dec. 12/4: “A Pavlova, an Australian dessert – a meringue with cream,
passion fruit, ice cream and strawberries.”
1974 H. G. W. Fogg Compl. Handbk. Bulbs vii. 122/2: “As long as they are not forced,
puschkinias can be grown indoors like crocuses.”
1975 Offshore Engineer Dec. 42/3: “For an isolated stationary cylinder the Strouhal number
is fairly constant for a wide range of Reynolds numbers.”
1962 G. A. T. Burdett Automatic Control Handbk. xxi. 6: “There are three types of
scanning device in existence – the Nipkow disc, the flying-spot scanner and the pick-up
tube.”
1984 Washington Post 24 Dec. B7/6: “The ornate surface of Ben Eldridge’s banjo and the
brittle precision of John Duffey’s mandolin were answered by the warm and elastic dobro of
Mike Auldridge.”
The first Slavic example of toponymy is karakul, which is originally the name of a province
and lake in Bokhara. The borrowing denotes a breed of sheep with coarse wiry fur, and also
the glossy curled coat of a young karakul lamb, valued as fur.
A similar example is astrakhan (from Astrakhan in Russia), which denotes the skin of still-
born or very young lambs, the wool of which resembles fur. The borrowing also refers to a
kind of cloth used chiefly as an edging or trimming for garments.
The next example is the proprietary name of a variety of Russian vodka. Stolichnaya
literally means “of the capital”, metropolitan, so vodka that comes from the capital.
Many minerals carry the names of their discoverers, or of the places where they were
discovered for the first time. Murmanite is a typical example, coming from Murman, name
of a shore in the north of the Kola peninsula in Russia.
A more familiar example is the famous dance mazurka, which owes its form to the Polish
province Mazovia.
A similar instance is the ceremonial marchlike dance called polonaise. It comes from the
adjective “Polish”; however, not directly from this Slavic language, but via French as a
direct adoption of polonaise.
Toponymy quotes:
1957 V. Nabokov Pnin v. 134: “The warm rose-red silk lining of her karakul muff.”
1958 Hayward & Harari tr. Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago i. vi. 183: “Her astrakhan cape hung
open over the quaking layers of her double chin.”
1977 J. Wambaugh Black Marble (1978) i. 3: “He stealthily withdrew the bottle of
Stolichnaya from the pocket of his raincoat.”
1968 I. Kostov Mineralogy ii. v. 298: “Murmanite and lomonosovite form a complete
isomorphous series and are monoclinic like sphene and fersmanite.”
1842 Motley Corr. (1889) I. iv. 116: “He is at all the parties perpetually, and perpetually
dancing the mazurka.”
1813 Lady Burghersh Lett. (1893) 93: “The ball began with polonaises, which are in fact
only walking in time.”
Specialization has, somewhat contrary to what we have expected, turned out to be quite a
frequent semantic change with Slavic borrowings. Especially numerous are cases of
eponymy and toponymy, where in the field of mineralogy almost every borrowing is derived
from a personal or place name.
An interesting characteristic of a number of examples is the fact that the word itself already
existed in English, so that it was only the specialized meaning that was imported into the
language. With other instances the change occurred in the matrix language as a result of
miscellaneous reasons, which can hardly point to a deducible pattern we could put forward
as a universal motive for specialization.
With this we conclude the discussion on semantic changes in a horizontal dimension, and
proceed to modifications on a vertical scale.
3.4.3 Amelioration
With amelioration a word develops a positive sense of approval. It may change from
pejorative to neutral or positive. “The ascent, however, is not in obedience to any general
tendency, but occurs in response to some peculiar cause” (Greenough & Kittredge 1961:
295). Well - known examples are also quite amusing: Marshal once meant “horse-boy”,
constable “stall-attendant”, chamberlain “the servant in charge of the chambers”, nice
meant “foolish”, and pioneers were once the soldiers who cleared the way for an army, and
did all the hard and unpleasant work.
After scrutinizing the corpus for examples of amelioration with Slavic borrowings, we
cannot offer a single word for consideration. The only instance that came somewhat close
is the Slavic heyduck. The loan that originally meant “robber”, “bandit”, “brigand” (a sense
still retained in Serbia and adjacent countries), in Hungary became the name of a special
body of foot-soldiers (to whom the rank of nobility and a territory were given in 1605), and
in Poland of the liveried personal followers or attendants of the nobles. It is interesting that
all three meanings appear in English; i.e., from the most disagreeable (robber), to the neutral
(servant), as is evident from the quotes:
1684 Scanderbeg Rediv. iv. 54: “First Marched five Companies of Heyduques.”
1847 Mrs. A. Kerr Hist. Servia 49: “Such as refused to appear before the Kadi, fled into the
forests and turned Heyducs or robbers.”
1889 Athenćum 15 June 768/1: “One of that extinct species of servants, the heyducs, holds
the horse of the fat monarch.”
The amelioration of meaning in this case occurred already in the source languages, so that
English simply adopted and used whatever sense it had the need to express, without any
participation or interest in the semantic change on its own.
With deterioration (Greenough & Kittredge 1961: 284, talk about degeneration of
meaning) a lexeme develops a negative sense of disapproval. The process is best described
by Greenough & Kittredge in their work Words and Their Ways in English Speech (1961:
284): “Descent is easy, and words, like people, show a propensity to fall away from their
better selves. The degeneration is sometimes due to special causes. Usually, however, the
word takes its first step in the downward path when it is used in slight, perhaps jocose,
disparagement. As time goes on, it gets into worse and worse odor, until at last it may
become a term of extreme contempt or reprobation.”
More or less familiar examples in the English language are villain, which originally signified
“a farm-laborer”, lust, which originally meant simply “pleasure”, vile literally “cheap”, and
fanatic, a Latin synonym for “enthusiastic”.
In the case of deterioration, the corpus of Slavic borrowings did offer a few examples.
a) Polack originally refers to a native or inhabitant of Poland, a Pole. In North America the
term acquired negative connotation denoting a Polish immigrant or person of Polish
descent, used derogatorily by the ethnic majority (Anglo-Saxon origin), but also by other
ethnic minorities in the USA and Canada. Quotes:
1976 National Observer (U.S.) 26 June 1/3: “The Crusher’s a clean-living Polack from
Milwaukee who don’t truck with no drugs or bad women.”
1972 Telegraph (Brisbane) 6 May 7/2: “A world where youth gangs – the teddy boys of
yesterday and the “droogs” of tomorrow – have virtually taken over, sweeping all forms of
law and order aside.”
c) Tsar basically denotes the title of an autocrat or emperor of Russia. For most people this
represents a neutral use of the word, although it may produce a special personal
connotation to a native Russian, or a Russian expatriate. The deteriorated meaning
originates from the United States, and refers to a person having great authority or absolute
power – a tyrant, “boss”. Quotes:
1810 E. D. Clarke Trav. Russia, etc. (1839) 29/1: “The connection which subsisted between
the tsars of Muscovy and the emperors of Constantinople.”
1959 Listener 5 Nov. 784/1: “The Czar – as we say – or President of the Motion Picture
Producers’ Association.”
d) The next example, of miscellaneous origin, is the notorious horde. Originally the term
refers to a tribe or troop of Tartar or kindred Asiatic nomads, dwelling in tents or wagons,
and migrating from place to place for pasturage, or for war or plunder, and is as such
applied also to other nomadic tribes. In anthropology the loan, quite positively, denotes a
loosely-knit social group consisting of about five families. The degeneration of meaning
focuses on the war – or – plunder part of the basic sense, hence referring to a great
company, especially of the savage, uncivilized, or uncultivated – a gang, troop, crew.
Quotes:
1799 W. Tooke View Russian Emp. II. 78: “The Kirghises have always been divided into
three hordes, the great, the middle and the little hordes.”
1847 Disraeli Tancred vi. iv: “I am sprung from a horde of Baltic pirates.”
1883 19th Cent. May 901: “In all our large cities there are hordes of little ragged urchins
who live on the streets.”
1939 Geogr. Jrnl. XCIV. 89: “Davidson points out that the horde, a unit of about five
families, in all some thirty-five persons, was the largest political unit known to the
Australians.”
e) Our last case comprises three words which all suffered a similar turn for the worse.
Hussar, pandoor and uhlan primarily denote special army units, without any special
connotation added. In the time of their active participation in warfare, the however, bad
reputation of these warriors was immense. Particularly pandoors, who were known for their
rapacity and brutality, and Black or Death Hussars, who in the war with France reportedly
showed no mercy, ultimately contributed to the ill-fame nowadays associated with these,
admittedly, more and more obscure loans. Hence, a person who is referred to as an uhlan,
pandoor or hussar, is bestowed upon all the worst characteristics of a soldier, but also
courage and awe, which accompany such men. Quotes:
1768 Foote Devil on 2 Sticks 11: “The hussars and pandours of physic, rarely attack a
patient together.”
1799 Campbell Pleas. Hope i. 352: “When leagued Oppression pour'd to Northern wars Her
whisker’d pandoors and her fierce hussars.”
1800 A. Carlyle Autobiog. 432: “He was a mere hussar, who had no steady views to direct
him.”
1816 Scott Let. to Jas. Ballantyne ibid.: “I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who
neither give nor receive criticism.”
1851 Gallenga Italy 471: “Squadrons of hussars and Hulans were scouring the plain in
every direction.”
1851 Gallenga Italy 131: “Three squadrons of hulans and four companies of Croatians.”
1886 Pall Mall G. 6 March 5/2: “Those uhlans of commerce who have lately been so
urgently calling for the establishment of railway communication with China through
Burmah. “
3.4.5 Summary
The semantic analysis of the corpus has shown us that not all Slavic borrowings, after they
have been borrowed into English, remain semantically unchanged, but that they acquire
new, often quite different meanings. Their “evolution” is frequently manifold in nature, i.e.
not limited to one kind of semantic change only. For example, tsar experienced both
generalization and deterioration, whereas droog underwent specialization and
deterioration. Amelioration is virtually non-existent with Slavic borrowings, for reasons we
have hinted at in the previous section.
In short, Slavic loans in English behave, in terms of meaning, just as other words, provided
they are given a proper stimulus or enough time. Therefore, the complete naturalization of
some of them is perhaps not so remote after all, as robot clearly exemplifies.
When we began our work on this thesis, our expectations about the Slovene contribution in
the English language were at least optimistic if not idealistic. We hoped to discover some
new words, in addition to those Mr. Klinar had mentioned in his classes on English word-
formation (dolina, polje, uvala, ponor, karst). However, disappointment struck hard, and
illusions vanished in thin air. Moreover, even Klinar’s words fell out of the game, once OED
flashed on the screen: Dolina is supposed to be an adaptation of Russian dolína. Polje
comes from Serbo-Croat polje. Uvala is again an adoption from Serbo-Croat uvala, as is
ponor from ponor. And Karst came into English from German der Karst, which is again
only an adaptation of the Serbo-Croat Kras.
Once this was established we stopped looking at individual words and ran an etymological
search in the OED. We discovered that Slovene does exist in etymological definitions, and
were delighted to see the results of the query. And this is what came up: bread, cat, church,
gherkin and knez. With each of these words, however, Slovene appeared only as a small
fragment in a lengthy etymological discussion, and by no means as the only source of the
lexeme. Closest to this came knez, with the following etymology: [A Slavonic word:
Serbian, Slov. knez, Boh. knez, Sorbian knjez, Russ. knjaz:---Old Slav. kunenz, prehistoric
a. OTeut. *kuning- king. From Slov., also Romanian knęz, Alban. knez, Magyar kenez.] .
After that we decided to look at the word Slovene. Again we discovered that the English
are more than partial to adopting words via German: [a. G. Slovene (Slowene), pl.
Slovenen, ad. Styrian, etc. Slovenec, pl. Slovenci; the name is a survival of the old native
designation of the Slavs, which appears in OSlav. as Slovene, and is supposed to be derived
from the stem of slovo word, sloviti to speak.]
When all hope was already gone of finding at least one borrowing of purely Slovene origin,
the word vila appeared as if from nowhere. The origin of the word is according to the OED
[Serbo-Croat and Slovenian]. What this actually means is not entirely clear to us. It could
suggest either that the word was adopted from one or the other or that the origin is
uncertain – Serbo-Croat or Slovene. Be that as it may, vila is the only word listed in the
OED that their etymologists define as undoubtedly coming from Slovene.
In the end, little remains to be said, now that we have described our “Odyssey” of search for
Slovene borrowings in the English language. We may either agree or disagree with the
etymologists, but that ultimately does not change their ruling. Is this status of Slovene in
English the result of ignorance of these scientists? Probably not, since they are all more than
qualified for their job. Is it the result of a mistake? Not likely, and certainly not with the
OED. In our opinion, Slovene, or perhaps better, Slovenia is simply not influential enough
to be given any linguistic credit for words that are, at least to our mind, undeniably ours.
Therefore, the only thing we can “accuse” the English of, is bias.
5. CONCLUSION
The corpus has shown that Slavic words are present in the English lexicon in a number that
can hardly be described as insignificant, with the most prolific source amongst Slavic
languages being undoubtedly Russian.
Analysing the body of examples in terms of three-fold division into simple and adapted
loans and loan translations, has produced anticipated results in terms of their frequency,
whereby they follow each other from the most to the lest frequent in the same order as they
are discussed.
Next, our attention turned towards semantics. We analysed semantic changes as they occur
with Slavonic loanwords, focusing on generalization, specialization, amelioration and
degeneration of meaning. This turned out to be the most compelling part of our work,
providing results that ultimately substantiate the summarising thought from the previous
paragraph.
Last but not least, we tried to find some answers as to why Slovene does not feature more
prominently in the English lexicon. We concluded that our native tongue is probably not
influential enough, to make the “giant” step in the direction of English dictionaries.
To conclude, we would like to point out that we are aware that the corpus, and by
extension its analysis, is not up to date. The reason for that lies in the fact that it is based on
the OED, i.e. its second edition from 1992, and for a small part on Fifty Years Among the
New Words, by John Algeo, from 1991. This means eight years of more or less blank space.
We have tried to find some neologisms of Slavic origin in corresponding dictionaries, but
without any luck. We have also probed the internet, but it turned out to be like looking for a
needle in a haystack. All that, of course, does not mean there are not any new Slavic words
in English already in use in everyday speech.
So, as not to sound too apologetic, we are nevertheless convinced that this thesis represents
a comprehensive survey of Slavic borrowings in the English language for the most part of
its linguistic history.
6. NOTES
1 – Among the enumerated entries are also some that were imported into English via
translations of works by non-English authors, for example from Travels in the Caucasus
by the German orientalist and explorer Heinrich Julius Klaproth, or Journey Through
Various Provinces of the Russian Empire by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas.
2 – In literature both terms are used interchangeably and inconsistently. Hence, this thesis
employs the same policy.
5 – This is only partially correct. For glasnost “is recorded in dictionaries from the
eighteenth century, but in the more general sense of publicity. It was used in the context of
freedom of information in the Soviet State by V. I. Lenin, and called for in an open
letter to the Soviet Writers' Union by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1969, but did not become a
subject of serious public debate in the Soviet Union until an Izvestiya editorial
requested letters on the subject on 19 Jan. 1985. Its use by Mikhail Gorbachev on 11 Mar.
1985 in a speech accepting the post of General Secretary of the CPSU has subsequently led
to its being associated particularly with his policies.” (OED)
6 – For a more detailed discussion on extension or generalization, see the chapter on the
changes of meaning.
7 – Of course not all candidates could meet this requirement, as the examples of Agit-prop
and Cesarewitch show. For those, other criteria came into consideration (meaning, form).
8 – The term “primary meaning” will in the discussion be replaced by the term “basic
meaning” or “original meaning”, so as to avoid any misunderstanding.
9 – Perestroika and glasnost have already been discussed in the section on Slavic aliens. In
order to avoid repetition we shall not examine them again in the present section.
10 – The etymology of the word shows that hussar is not exclusively of Slavic origin. We
have nevertheless included it in the corpus, for its Serbian roots: a. Hungarian huszar, orig.
“freebooter, free-lance”, later “light horseman”, ad. OServian husar, also gusar, hursar,
gursar, kursar pirate, robber, freebooter, ad. It. corsaro, corsare (OED on CD–ROM;
1992)
11 − The first three examples of babushka, commissar and liquidate are different from the
rest of the set in that the specialised meanings were adopted into English already from the
primary language and did not develop in the borrowing language. They are included in the
discussion as an illustration of the semantic process itself.
12 – The term primarily denotes a special branch of onomastics which deals specifically with
the origin of place names.
7. REFERENCES
Books
Algeo, J. 1991. Fifty Years Among the New Words; A Dictionary of Neologisms, 1941–
1991. Cambridge: CUP.
Baugh & Cable. 1993. A History of the English Language. London: Routledge.
Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.
Davis, M. & Klinar,S. 1996. English Word-Formation; Part One. Ljubljana: Filozofska
fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani.
Greenough, J.& Kittredge, G. 1961. Words and Their Ways in English Speech. New York:
The Macmillan Company.
---- The Oxford English Dictionary; Volume 1 A–Bazouki; Introduction and General
Explanations. 1989. Oxford: OUP.
Electronic sources
---- Encyclopedia Britannica on CD–ROM. 1995 and 1999 Editions.
---- Oxford English Dictionary on CD–ROM; 2nd edition. 1992. Oxford: OUP.
Sinclair, J. eds. 1992. The Collins Electronic English Dictionary & Thesaurus. Glasgow and
London: HarperCollins Publishers.
---- www.geocities.com/bohemianbeertours/czech_beers.htm
8. APPENDIX
8.1. CORPUS
In the corpus the languages follow one another, with the exception of Russian, in
alphabetical order. Russian as the most prolific source, is placed at the beginning in order to
stress its prominence.
The corpus is based on an etymological search run in the OED, and in part on the Collins
Cobuild Electronic Dictionary and Fifty Years Among the New Words by John Algeo. The
borrowings are listed alphabetically for each language. Each entry is equipped with
etymology, explanation, and one or more quotes if they are available.
The pronunciation has been abandoned partly for technical reasons, and partly because it
does not feature importantly in our discussion. The reader is advised to refer to one of the
following books if he/she shows specific interest in this area:
a) Roach & Hartman. 1997. English Pronuncing Dictionary. Cambridge: CUP.
b) Wells, J.C.1992. Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow: Longman.
8.1.2 Russian
1. achtaragdite Min.
[f. Achtaragda a Russian river + -ite min. formative.]
An earthy hydrous aluminous silicate, considered by Dana a doubtful species, and placed in his appendix to
clays.
2. Acmeism
[ad. Russ. akmeizm, f. Gr. ____ acme: see -ism.]
An early twentieth-century movement in Russian poetry which rejected the values of Symbolism in favour
of formal technique and clarity of exposition; the poetic theory
represented by this movement.
e.g. 1961 H. Muchnic From Gorky to Pasternak 10 This individualist attitude, variously manifested, not
only in Symbolism itself but in its several offshoots---Acmeism, Futurism, Formalism, as well as in the
entirely personal nightmares of such writers as Leonid Andreyev---was to clash most sharply with the
dogma of Soviet art.
Also
Acmeist, a member or admirer of the Acmeist movement in poetry (usu. in pl.); also attrib. or as adj.
4. Agit-prop, agit-prop
[f. Russ. agitpróp, f. agit(átsiya agitation + prop(agánda propaganda.]
A department of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party responsible, with its local
branches, for _agitation and propaganda' on behalf of Communism; its activities. Also, a person engaged in
agitprop. Also transf.
e.g. 1952 Economist 1 Mar. 508/2 Any businessman who goes to Moscow in the belief that he will be able
to strike an effective blow for anything he believes in and the Communists do not is simply inviting the
Agitpro' experts to make a monkey of him.
1959 Spectator 6 Nov. 629/2 The whole tone [of the play] is ten times heavier and cornier than any of the
agitprop from the old Unity Theatre.
6. apparat
[Russ., a. Ger. apparat apparatus, instrument, f. L. apparatus apparatus.]
The party machine of the Communist party in Russia, etc. Also attrib.
e.g. 1950 A. Koestler God that Failed i. i. 46, I found Communist apparat-work much less efficient than its
scared opponents presume.
1952 ---- Arrow in Blue xxviii. 262 This is true not only of members of the Apparat but of militant
Communists in general.
9. artel
[Russ. artél'.]
In Russia, an association of craftsmen or other workers for work in common. Also attrib. in artelman
[partial tr. of Russ. artél'shchik].
e.g. 1955 H. Hodgkinson Doubletalk 27 A brigade, or artel, chosen without regard for family connections,
undertake particular functions---ploughing, reaping, processing, milking, etc.---as and where required.
10. astatki
[ad. Russ. ostátki (pronounced a_statki_), pl. of ostátok remainder.]
The waste product of the distillation of Russian petroleum atomized with steam and made combustible for
use as fuel. Also attrib.
e.g. 1885 Jrnl. Soc. Chem. Ind. IV. 78/1 Petroleum residuum or astatki is the only fuel employed in
distilling petroleum at Baku.
11. astrakhan
a. The skin of still-born or very young lambs from Astrakhan in Russia, the wool of which resembles fur.
b. A kind of cloth used chiefly as an edging or trimming for garments.
e.g. 1965 Which? Mar. 96/2 Most astrakhan cloth is imitation fur, usually made from wool and mohair. For
coats, hats, trimmings.
12. astrobotany
[ad. Russ. astrobotanika (Tikhov 1945)],
the study of plant organisms on the celestial bodies;
hence astro-botanist;
e.g. 1952 Sci. News Let. 5 Jan. 2 There is much attention [in the Soviet Union] to what is called
*astrobotany.
1956 Newsweek 22 Oct. 26/2 Gabriel Tikhov, Soviet astrobotanist, reports confirmation of his theory that
higher forms of vegetation, similar to trees, exist on Mars.
14. badiaga
[Russ. ba_dyaga _river-sponge.']
A species of alga, the powder of which is used to take away the livid marks of bruises.
e.g. 1753 in Chambers Cycl. Supp.
1853 in Mayne Exp. Lex.
15. balalaika
[Russ.]
A musical instrument of the guitar kind, with a triangular body, popular in Russia and other Slav countries.
Also attrib.
e.g. 1954 Grove's Dict. Mus. (ed. 5) I. 368/2 Balalaika bands have frequently visited Western Europe.
16. barometz
[App. an erroneous adaptation of Russ. baranets (dimin. of baran ram') applied to species of Club-
moss, Lycopodium.]
A spurious natural-history specimen, consisting of the creeping root-stock and frond-stalks of a woolly fern
(Cibotium barometz) turned upside down; formerly represented as a creature half-animal and half-plant,
and called the Scythian Lamb (already referred to by Maundevile, ch. xxvi. p. 264).
e.g. 1791 E. Darwin Bot. Gard. i. 279 Waves, gentle Barometz, thy golden hair.
20. biogeochemistry
[f. geochemistry, after Russ. biogeokhimiya],
the branch of biochemistry that deals with the relation of chemicals found in the soil to living organisms;
the biological application of geochemistry;
hence biogeochemical a.;
e.g. 1938 tr. Vernadsky's On some Fundamental Probl. Biogeochem. 5 Biogeochemistry, which is a part of
geochemistry and has peculiar methods and peculiar problems of its own, may be finally reduced to a
precise quantitative mathematical expression of the living nature in its indissoluble connection with the
external medium, in which the living nature exists.
21. biomechanics.
Russ. Theatre.
[cf. Russ. biomekhanika.] Also
biomechanism. (See quots.)
e.g. 1930 P. England tr. Fülöp-Miller & Gregor's Russ. Theatre 68 The classical example of bio-mechanism
is the comedy The Magnificent Cuckold. In this the movements of the performers were so standardized that
they seemed to obey some geometric law._ Large revolving wheels were also employed, in order to register
the various emotions that prevailed from time to time in the breasts of the actors.
26. Bolshevism
[a. Russ. bolshevízm: see Bolshevik.]
The doctrines and practices of the Bolsheviks; the communistic form of government adopted in Russia since
the Bolshevik Revolution of October (November), 1917.
e.g. 1917 New Europe 8 Nov. 112 The good sense of Russian democracy threw off the yoke of Bolsevism.
1926 D. H. Lawrence Plumed Serpent ii. 47 Bolshevism only smashed your house or your business or your
skull, but Americanism smashes your soul.
_Bolshevy
[after Muscovy], the land of Bolshevism; Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviks.
e.g. 1920 Chambers's Jrnl. 514/1 Life in Bolshevisia---such as it was in July 1918.
1921 Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Mar., Bolshevy from within.
27. Bolshevist
[a. Russ. bol_shevíst (now disused) Bolshevik.]
A Bolshevik; a supporter of Bolshevism. Also transf., esp. as a term of reproach for an out-and-out
revolutionary. Also attrib. or as adj.
e.g. 1917 19th Cent. Dec. 1106 The reign of Bolshevists and Terrorists.
1940 Tablet 4 May 417/1 Under the Bolshevist-Nazi dictatorship, two hundred million human beings are
forced to live deprived of the foundations on which Western civilization was built.
Hence
Bolshevistic a., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, the Bolshevists;
Bolshevistically adv.
e.g. 1920 Punch 13 Oct. 282/1 In these Bolshevistic days I should have preferred of course to have started
off with _Comrade' or _Brother'.
31. Bukharinism
[f. the name of N. I. Bukharin (1888_1938), a Russian leader and editor + -ism.]
The political principles of Bukharin. So
Bu_kharinist a. and n.
e.g. 1949 I. Deutscher Stalin ix. 384 Conspiratorial activities of the Trotskyist and Bukharinist leaders.
Ibid. xi. 486 The evils of Trotskyism, Bukharinism, and other deviations.
32. buran
[a. Russ. burán, ad. Turki boran.]
In the steppes, a snowstorm, esp. one accompanied by high winds; a blizzard.
e.g. 1936 P. Fleming News from Tartary vi. xi. 305 When we went on the evening sky was overcast and
presently the buran hit us.
35. caback
[Russ. ka_bak, dram-shop.]
A Russian dram-shop or pot-house.
e.g. 1591 G. Fletcher Russe Commw. (1836) 58 In every great towne of his realme he hath a caback or
drinking house, where is sold_mead, beere, etc.
1678 in Phillips.
38. cantonist.
[ad. Russ. kanto_nist, from Fr.]
The child of a (Russian) soldier in cantonment.
1854 Fraser's Mag. L. 481 The so-called military cantonists supply a yearly contingent of recruits, of which
it is impossible to estimate the amount.
39. carlock
[a. Russ. karlúk isinglass; in F. also carlock.]
Isinglass from the bladder of the sturgeon, imported from Russia.
1768 in E. Buys Dict. Terms of Art.
1819 in Pantologia; and in mod. Dicts.
40. Cesarewitch
[ad. Russ. tsesarévich, title as heir to the imperial Russian throne of the prince who became Alexander
II.]
A long-distance handicap horse-race run at Newmarket, instituted in 1839.
1839 Sporting Mag. 2nd. Ser. XIX. 263 Newmarket.-His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke of Russia
having presented the Jockey Club with the sum of 300, to be run for annually, the first race for it will take
place in the Second October Meeting, and is thus officially announced: The Cesarewitch Stakes-a free
Handicap Sweepstakes.'
41. chark
[Russ. charka, dim. of chara glass, noggin.]
A small (Russian) glass or cup.
1591 G. Fletcher Russe Commw. (1857) 146 They beginne commonly with a chark, or small cuppe, of aqua
vitae.
1686 Diary P. Gordon 26 Jan. (Spalding Club 1859) Receiving a charke of brandy out of the youngest his
hand.
48. choom
[Russ. chum, f. native name.]
Among the nomadic peoples of Siberia, a conical hut or tent of fir poles covered with skins or birch bark.
e.g. 1889 V. Morier in Murray's Mag. Aug. 175 A little encampment of Samoyede summer chooms, i.e.
birch-bark tents.
1895 F. G. Jackson Gt. Frozen Land 82 Of the choom which forms the Samoyad's home there are two kinds,
one for summer and another for winter.
50. Circassian n. and a. Also 7 Sarcassen and (of a woman) Sarcashen, -cashien.
[f. Circassia, latinized form of Russ. cherkés (fem. cherkéshenka, pl. cherkésy) + -ia: see -ian.]
A. n.
1. A native or inhabitant of Circassia, a region in the northern Caucasus, of Caucasian race but non-Indo-
European in language; also, the North Caucasian language of this people.
e.g. 1923 L. & A. Maude tr. Tolstoy's War & Peace II. vii. x. 235 An hussar was Natasha, and a Circassian
was Sonya, with a burnt-cork moustache and eyebrows.
2. A thin worsted fabric. Also attrib.
e.g. 1824 J. Hogg Conf. Justified Sinner 341 Rather a gentlemanly personage---Green Circassian hunting
coat and turban---Like a foreigner.
B. adj. Of, pertaining to, or connected with the Circassians; Circassian circle: a type of dance popular in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries.
e.g. 1963 C. Mackenzie My Life & Times II. 109 At the dancing-class_the thrill of meeting Clive and
taking her hand for a moment or two in the peregrinations of the Circassian circle.
52. Comecon
[Acronym f. the initial letters of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (or Aid), tr. Russ. Sovet
Ékonomichesko_ Vzaimopomoshchi.]
The economic association of Communist countries in Eastern Europe.
e.g. 1981 Economist 24 Jan. 87/1 East Germany seems to be weathering the storm better than some in
Comecon.
53. Cominform
[Russ., f. the first elements of the Russ. forms of com(munist and inform(ation.]
An information bureau set up in 1947 by the communist countries of eastern Europe for the interchange of
experience and coordination of activities and dissolved in 1956. Also attrib. and transf.
e.g. 1947 in Amer. Speech (1949) XXIV. 73 The cominform, an information bureau set up by the
Communist parties of nine European countries.
Ibid., Considering both Mexico City and Montevideo_as headquarters for a _Cominform' in the Western
Hemisphere.
1958 New Statesman 6 Sept. 265/2 The new Cominform is in business, and its business is the publication of
a new journal from which Communists all over the world will take their cue.
Cominformist, a supporter of the Cominform; spec. a Yugoslav Communist who advocated the return of
Yugoslavia to the Soviet bloc, after its expulsion in 1948;
e.g. 1984 New Yorker 12 Mar. 97/1 As the seventies continued, hundreds of people---most of them in
Croatia, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina---were convicted of _Cominformist' sympathies or activities, of
various crimes _endangering the territorial integrity and the independence of Yugoslavia,' or of spreading
_hostile propaganda'.
55. commissar
[ad. Russ. komissár.]
a. = commissary 1; esp. during and after the Revolution of 1917 in Russia, a representative appointed by a
Soviet, a government, or the Communist party to be responsible for political indoctrination and
organization, esp. in military units.
b. In full People's Commissar, the head of a government department in the U.S.S.R. or any of its constituent
republics. (In 1946 the title was replaced by Minister'.)
e.g. 1955 J. Carmichael tr. Sukhanov's Russ. Revol. i. iii. 62 Braunstein proposed that directives be
given_for district committees to be formed, and for plenipotentiary Commissars to be appointed in each
district to restore order and direct the struggle against anarchy and pogroms.
56. commissariat
[tr. Russ. komissariát.]
In the U.S.S.R., a government department. (In 1946 the title was replaced by _Ministry'.)
e.g. 1952 Economist 15 Nov. 459/2 Ministries---as the Commissariats were renamed in 1946---were set up
for every major branch of economic activity.
57. constructivism.
[f. constructive a. + -ism.]
[ad. Russ. konstruktivízm]
a. The theory or use of mechanical structures in theatrical settings.
e.g. 1959 W. C. Lounsbury Backstage from A to Z 24 Constructivism, a once popular theatre movement in
Russia (during the twenties) with the emphasis on machines, mechanical devices, and skeleton construction.
b. An artistic movement, originating in Moscow in 1920, concerned mainly with expression by means of
constructions (construction 4 a); the type of art produced by this movement.
e.g. 1948 Archit. Rev. CIV. 299/1 The Renaissance school which took the place of this nihilistic
constructivism is also proving worthless in face of the new Soviet architecture.
58. copeck Also 7_8 copec, 8 copeik, copique, capeck, kapeke, 8_9 copeek, 9 kopek.
[ad. Russ. kopięika, kopeika, deriv. (dim. form) of kopyé lance, pike.
So called from the substitution in 1535 of the figure of Ivan IV. on horseback with a lance, for that of his
predecessor with a sword. Cf. Bestuzhev-Riumin, Russkoya Istoriya, 1885, II. 206, and Karamzin VIII. i.
(citing the contemporary Chronicle of Rostov.).]
A Russian copper coin, the 1100 part of a rouble, now (1893) worth from 14 to 13 of a penny English.
e.g. 1888 Times 27 June 12/1 A tax of half a copeck per pood should be levied on exported corn.
60. crash n
[ from Russian krashenina coloured linen]
e.g. 1. a. A coarse kind of linen, used for towels, etc.
1812 J. Smyth Pract. Customs 125 A coarse sort of narrow Russia Linen_commonly called Crash, and
generally used as Towelling.
b. attrib. Made of crash.
1875 I. L. Bird Sandwich Isl. (1880) 106 A basin, crash towels, a caraffe.
1887 Pall Mall G. 2 June 14/1 Strong white _crash' bags.
2. The name of a tint in textile fabrics, the colour of unbleached cotton.
1927 Daily Express 2 Apr. 6 In shades of Peach, Bracken, Sunburn, Caramel, Gold, Crash, White.
61. Cubo-Futurism
[ad. Russ. kubo-futurizm (1914): see Cubism and futurism.]
An early 20th-century movement among Russian painters, characterized by works treating the subjects of
peasant art in the abstract geometrical manner of Cubism.
e.g. 1982 A. Lieven tr. L. A. Zhadova's Malevich i. 16 _Cubo-Futurism' as a general and widely-accepted
label gained currency at a time when both critics and general public lumped together the pictures of the
Cubists and the poems of the Futurists as equally incomprehensible.
Hence
CuboFuturist a. and n.
1962 C. Gray Great Experiment v. 132 The Woodcutter of 1911 is Malevich's first mature Cubo-Futurist
work.
Ibid. vi. 182 The circle of the Moscow Cubo-Futurists.
1981 Oxf. Compan. 20th-Cent. Art 138/2 Some historians_have used the term _Cubo-Futurist' to describe
this primitivist reaction generally, far though it often is from either Cubism or Futurism.
62. czar
[Russ. tsar from Russian tsar, via Gothic kaisar from Latin: CAESAR
a. Hist. The title of the autocrat or emperor of Russia; historically, borne also by Serbian rulers of the 14th
c., as the Tsar Stephen Dushan.
In Russia it was partially used by the Grand Duke Ivan III, 1462_1505, and by his son Basil or Vasili, but
was formally assumed by Ivan IV in 1547. According to Herberstein its actual sense in Russian was king',
but it was gradually taken as emperor', a sense which it had in other Slavonic languages. Peter the Great
introduced the title imperator emperor', and the official style shortly before the Revolution of 1917 was
Emperor of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland'; but the Russian popular
appellation was still tsar.
e.g. 1890 Morfill Russia 56 Ivan assuming the cognizance of the double-headed eagle, and partially taking
the title of Tsar, the complete assumption of it being the achievement of Ivan IV.
b. transf. A person having great authority or absolute power; a tyrant, boss. orig. U.S.
e.g. 1959 Listener 5 Nov. 784/1 The Czar---as we say---or President of the Motion Picture Producers'
Association.
Hence
tsarlet, a petty Tsar.
1889 Fortn. Rev. XLVI. 285 This frightful régime of innumerable Tsarlets.
70. diversionist
[f. diversion + -ist; cf. Russ. diversánt]
In Communist usage: a saboteur; also, one who conspires against the government. Also attrib. or as adj.
Hence
diversionism, the activity of a diversionist.
e.g. 1955 Times 1 July 10/6 He pleaded Guilty to political crimes and diversionist activity, but denied
collaborating with the Gestapo during the war.
74. droog
[ad. Russ. drug friend.]
Anthony Burgess’s word for a member of a gang (see quot. 1962); a young ruffian; an accomplice or
henchman of a gang-leader.
e.g. 1984 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Apr. 402/2 How long ago it seems since the New York Times referred to the
spray-can droogs of the subways as little Picassos.
75. droshky, drosky. Also droitzschka, drojeka, droshka, -ke, -ki, droska, droskcha.
[ad. Russ. drozhki, dim. of drogi waggon, hearse; properly pl. of droga perch, or _reach' of a four-
wheeled vehicle. So Fr. droschki, Ger. droschke.]
A kind of vehicle: orig. and prop. a Russian low four-wheeled carriage without a top, consisting of a narrow
bench on which the passengers sit astride or sideways, their feet resting on bars near the ground; hence
transferred to other vehicles in use elsewhere; in some German towns the name of the ordinary four-
wheelers or fiacres plying for hire.
e.g. 1882 Strathesk Bits fr. Blinkbonny xiii. 294 He met the drosky containing Mrs. Barrie and the children.
attrib.
1838 J. L. Stephens Trav. Greece, etc. 71/1 The drosky boy_dressed in a long surtout_sits on the end.
77. dvornik
[Russ. dvórnik, f. dvor courtyard.]
A house-porter.
e.g. 1923 Blackw. Mag. Feb. 203/2 The _dvornik' had been with the family for years.
82. glasnost
[Russ. glasnost_, lit. _the fact of being public; openness to public scrutiny or discussion'.]
In relation to the affairs of the Soviet Union: a declared party policy since 1985 of greater openness and
frankness in public statements, including the publication of news reflecting adversely on the government
and political system; greater freedom of speech and information arising from this policy. Also applied
transf. to similar developments in other countries.
The Russ. word is recorded in dictionaries from the eighteenth century, but in the more general sense of
_publicity'. It was used in the context of freedom of information in the Soviet State by V. I. Lenin, and
called for in an open letter to the Soviet Writers' Union by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1969, but did not
become a subject of serious public debate in the Soviet Union until an Izvestiya editorial requested letters on
the subject on 19 Jan. 1985. Its use by Mikhail Gorbachev on 11 Mar. 1985 in a speech accepting the post of
General Secretary of the CPSU has subsequently led to its being associated particularly with his policies.
e.g. 1981 N.Y. Times 13 Mar. a7/1 The Russians, it seems, have rediscovered the value of Lenin's dictum
that _glasnost', the Russian word for openness or publicity, is a desirable form of conduct.
1986 Daily Tel. 10 Oct. 6/6 What about Mr Gorbachev's exciting campaign for greater glasnost', meaning
frankness, in tackling defects in the Soviet system?
83. godless
the Godless
[Russ. bezbózhnik]: the title of a union (and its press organs) in Soviet Russia, having for its primary
object the suppression of religion.
e.g. 1967 G. von Stackelberg in Fletcher & Strover Relig. & Search for New Ideals in U.S.S.R. 95
Publication of atheist propaganda was_revived in 1947 when the Association of Militant Godless was
dissolved and the Society for Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge established.
87. gusli
[a. Russ. gúsli.]
A Russian musical instrument resembling a zither.
e.g. 1961 A. C. Baines Mus. Instruments 206 A true psaltery of medieval vintage survives in Russia in
certain forms of gusli, much used by ballad singers formerly.
92. informatics
[tr. Russ. informátika (A. I. Mikhailov et al. 1966, in Nauchno-tekhnicheskaya Informatsiya XII. 35)]
informatical a., informatician.
e.g. 1967 FID News Bull. XVII. 73/2 Informatics is the discipline of science which investigates the
structure and properties (not specific content) of scientific information, as well as the regularities of
scientific information activity, its theory, history, methodology and organization.
96. Intourist
[Russ. Inturíst, abbrev. of inostránny_ turíst foreign tourist.]
Name of the State Travel Bureau of the U.S.S.R.
e.g. 1958 J. Gunther Inside Russia Today i. 29 You go to any travel agency that has an arrangement with
Intourist, the official Russian agency_and apply for a tourist visa.
100. Ivan
[Russ., = John.]
Used for: a Russian, esp. a Russian soldier (as typical of the Russian army).
e.g. 1972 Guardian 8 Sept. 12/4 A situation in which Ivan continues to come a lot cheaper than GI Joe.
105. kalashnikov
[Russ.]
The name of a type of rifle or sub-machine gun made in the U.S.S.R. Also attrib.
e.g. 1973 Times 11 Apr. 1/8 He ran to get his kalashnikov (a Russian assault weapon) but when he returned,
the Israelis had burst through the door.
109. kamish
[ad. Russ. kamýsh reed.]
The common reed, Phragmites communis.
1964 R. Perry World of Tiger i. 2 The vast beds of kamish reeds_which stretch for miles from the slow flood
of the Kuban to the Persian shore of the Caspian.
114. Katyusha
[Russ.]
A Russian rocket launcher.
e.g. 1972 E. Ambler Levanter vi. 170, I remembered what Barlev had told me about the 120-mm. Katyusha
rocket: fifty kilo warhead, range of about eleven kilometres.
115. kazachoc
Also kozatchok and other forms repr. the acc. or pl. of the Russ. word.
[Russ., dim. of kazák Cossack.]
A Slavic, mainly Ukrainian, dance with a fast and usu. quickening tempo. Sometimes used erron. for a step
of this dance, properly called the prisiadka, in which the male dancer squats on his heels and kicks out each
leg alternately to the front.
e.g. 1966 K. Giles Provenance of Death iii. 78 She switched on the player and danced the Kazachka, mainly
to spite Harry who invariably fell over when he tried.
119. Khlist Also Chlist, Khlyst. Pl. Chlists, Khlisti, Khlysts, Khlysty.
[Russ., lit. a whip.]
A member of a sect of ascetic Russian Christians, formed in the 17th century, who believed that Christ could
be reincarnated in human beings through their suffering.
e.g. 1967 D. T. Kauffman Dict. Relig. Terms. 274 Khlysts, Chlists, or Klysty flagellants, Russian ascetics
originating in the seventeenth century.
124. knish
[Yiddish, f. Russ. knish, knysh a kind of cake.]
A dumpling of flaky dough filled with chopped liver, potato, or cheese, and baked or fried.
e.g. 1973 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 27 May 2/4 He consumed three meat knishes, two blueberry
knishes, four potato knishes and two cream-filled knishes.
127. kok-saghyz
[ad. Russ. kok-sagyz, of Turkic origin.]
A kind of dandelion, Taraxacum koksaghyz, whose roots contain a latex used for making rubber.
e.g. 1954 H. J. Stern Rubber i. 18 Kok saghyz (Taraxacum kok saghyz. Rodin). This plant was discovered in
1931._ The roots contain about 90 per cent. of the total rubber in the plant.
129. kolkhoz Also kolhoz, kolkhos, etc. Pl. kolkhoz, kolkhozes, kolkhozy.
[Russ., f. kol(lektívnoe khoz(yá_stvo, collective farm.]
A collective farm in the U.S.S.R. Also transf.
e.g. 1943 E. M. Almedingen Frossia viii. 285 He knows Russia._ He has seen Sovhozes and Kolhozes.
1972 Guardian 4 Aug. 4/4 A kolkhoz, or collective farm, is a symbol of the crude rustic for city dwellers.
_kolkhoznik (pl. -niki), a member of a kolkhoz.
1955 H. Hodgkinson Doubletalk 27 Each worker, or kolkhoznik, has to give between 100 and 150 work
days on the common land.
130. kolovratite Min.
[ad. Russ. kolovratit (V. I. Vernadsky 1922, in Compt. Rend. de l'Acad. d. Sci. de Russie A. 37), f. the
name of L. S. Kolovrat-Chervinsky (1884_1921), Russian radiochemist: see -ite1.]
A greenish-yellow amorphous or finely crystalline mineral that is probably a hydrous vanadate of nickel and
zinc.
e.g. 1962 Canad. Mineralogist VII. 314 Our evidence suggests, however, that kolovratite is a hydrous zinc-
nickel vanadate, or possibly a silico_vanadate, rather than a nickel vanadate as inferred in the original
description.
133. koumiss Forms: (cosmos, cosmus, cossmos: see cosmos), chumis, kumisse, (kumish), koumiss,
kumiss, kumis, koumis, koomiss, kumys(s, (kimmiz, khoumese).
[ from Russian kumys, from Kazan Tatar kumyz]
A fermented liquor prepared from mare's milk, commonly used as a beverage by the Tartars and other
Asiatic nomadic peoples; also applied to a spirituous liquor distilled from this.
The fermented beverage is used dietetically and medicinally in various diseases, as phthisis, catarrhal
affections, anćmia, chlorosis, etc., and for these purposes imitations are also prepared from asses' milk and
cow's milk.
e.g. 1892 Daily News 28 Dec. 5/4 Mrs. Isabel Hapgood_gives some interesting particulars of koumiss (or
_kumys', as she prefers to spell it).
attrib.
1884 Pall Mall G. 15 Sept. 11/2 The koumiss cure is growing greatly in popularity._ Sometimes patients
spend six or seven summers at the koumiss establishments.
140. kulturny a.
[Russ. kul'túrny- civilized.]
In the Soviet Union: cultured, civilized.
e.g. 1959 New Statesman 23 May 711/3 Aesthetic considerations never played a part in the previous drives
for a more kulturny mode of life, which were more concerned with manners than with the cultivation of
good taste.
1973 J. Shub Moscow by Nightmare ix. 97 She let the porter take her one small suitcase---it wouldn't be
“kulturny” to carry it herself.
142. kurgan
[Russ. kurgan barrow, tumulus; of Tartar origin.]
A prehistoric sepulchral tumulus or barrow in Russia and Tartary.
1889 J. Abercromby E. Caucasus 218, I remarked two green basins._ They had been found in a kurgan.
1890 Huxley in 19th Cent. 769 These Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold articles_but contain
neither bronze nor iron.
148. liman
[Russian liman estuary; applied to the salt-marshes at the mouths of the Dnieper (cf. Turkish liman
harbour, mod.Gr.]
(See quots.)
1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Liman, a shallow narrow lagoon, at the mouth of rivers, where salt is made.
1859 Rawlinson Herod. III. iv. liii. 48 note, The word in the Greek_is rather _marsh' than _lake', and the
liman of the Dniepr is in point of fact so shallow as almost to deserve the name.
1879 Webster Suppl., Liman, the deposit of slime at the mouth of a river.
149. link
g. [tr. Russ. zvenó.]
The name of a small labour unit on a collective farm in the U.S.S.R. Hence link leader;
link system, a system of organizing collective farming into links.
e.g. 1965 Economist 18 Dec. 1283/1 The _links' are a veiled compromise between the American type of
large-scale farming and the Soviet collective method.
150. liquidate
[after Russ. likvidírovat- to liquidate, wind up.]
To put an end to, abolish; to stamp out, wipe out; to kill.
e.g. 1943 C. S. Lewis Abolition of Man iii. 37 Once we killed bad men: now we liquidate unsocial elements.
1971 Sunday Times 13 June 12/6 When the army units fanned out in Dacca on the evening of March
25_many of them carried lists of people to be liquidated.
155. lunokhod Astronautics. Also (as the proper name of individual vehicles) with capital initial.
[a. Russ. lunokhód, f. luná moon + -khod, suffix denoting something that travels (f. khodít' to go).]
A type of Russian self-propelled, radio-controlled vehicle for transmitting information about the moon as it
travels over its surface.
e.g. 1970 Guardian 18 Nov. 1/2 Russia is likely to try to bring its moon crawler Lunokod-1 back to earth.
158. mammoth n. and a. Also mammuth, mamant, maman, mamont, mammon, mammot, (mammoht),
mammouth.
[a. Russian mammot, whence mammotovoi kost mammoth's bones (Ludolf Gram. Russ. 1696, p. 92);
now mamant. Hence also F. mammouth, mamant, mammont. The word is of obscure origin; the
alleged Tartar word mama “earth” (usually cited as the etymon) is not known to exist.]
A. n.
1. a. A large extinct species of elephant (Elephas primigenius) formerly native in Europe and northern Asia;
its remains are frequently found in the alluvial deposits in Siberia.
e.g. 1863 A. C. Ramsay Phys. Geog. xxviii. (1878) 463 Man, the Mammoth, and other extinct mammalia,
were contemporaneous.
b. attrib. and Comb., as mammoth horn, ivory, tusk; mammoth-wise adv.
e.g. 1903 Expositor June 460 Wrought objects of mammoth ivory.
c. U.S. Often applied to the fossil mastodon.
e.g. 2. fig. Something of huge size (cf. B).
1894 Cornh. Mag. Mar. 269 Bayle's _Dictionnaire Historique', 5 vols. folio, or any kindred mammoth
among books.
B. adj.
a. Comparable to the mammoth in size; huge, gigantic.
Freq. in American usage before 1850.
e.g. 1974 Economist 21 Dec. 65/1 Britain's mammoth current account deficit.
b. mammoth powder (see quot. 1875); mammoth-tree, the Sequoia (Wellingtonia) gigantea, a large
coniferous tree, native of California.
1866 Treas. Bot. 1051/1 The Wellingtonia of our gardens, and the Big or Mammoth-tree of the Americans.
1875 Knight Dict. Mech. s.v. Gunpowder, For very heavy ordnance a much larger grained powder_called
mammoth powder, was introduced by the late General T. J. Rodman.
159. manna-croup
[ad. Russian mannaya krupa (mannaya fem. adj. _pertaining to manna', krupa groats), or the
equivalent in some other Slavonic language. The Ger. synonym is mannagrütze (grütze = grit).]
a. A coarse granular meal consisting of the large hard grains of wheat-flour retained in the bolting-machine,
or in the grooves of the grinding-stones, after the fine flour has passed through, used for making puddings,
soups, etc.
b. A similar meal made from the seeds of the manna-grass, Glyceria fluitans.
e.g. 1872 Sowerby Eng. Bot. XI. 98 Floating Meadow-Grass._ In several parts of Germany this grass is
cultivated for its seeds, which form the manna croup of the shops.
161. Marrism
[f. the name of N. Ya. Marr (1865_1934), Russian linguist and archćologist + -ism.]
The linguistic theories advocated by Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, in which language is regarded as a
phenomenon of social class rather than of nationality; the advocacy of such theories. Hence
Marrist a.
e.g. 1966 B. Collinder in Birnbaum & Puhvel Anc. Indo-European Dial. 199 Marrism, which was officially
encouraged in Russia for political reasons, has raged as a kind of Asiatic flu in some European universities
west of the Iron Curtain.
163. maximalism
[f. maximal a. + -ism or ad. Russ. maksimalízm.]
The policy or theory of a maximum programme of some kind.
e.g. 1967 C. Seton-Watson Italy from Liberalism to Fascism xii. 524 Maximalism_provided only
revolutionary talk as a substitute for revolution.
168. Menshevism
[a. Russ. men-shevízm: see Menshevik a. and n.]
The doctrines and practices of the Mensheviks.
1920 Glasgow Herald 14 May 9 Communism as it is offered to Trans-Caucasia has assumed the form of
Menshevism.
171. mir n
[Russ.]
A village community in pre-revolutionary Russia. Also attrib.
1975 Times 8 Jan. 15/7 The democratic and civic traditions of Russia, from Kievian Rus to the mirs and the
Zaporozhean Republic.
174. moujik, muzhik Now Hist. Forms: musick, mousike, mousick, mugike, mougik, -jik, muzhik,
mooshik, -zheek; mouzhik, mujik.
[Russ. muzhik peasant.]
1. A Russian peasant.
e.g. 1963 V. Nabokov Gift iv. 216 He began dabbling in propaganda by conversing with mujiks.
2. (In full moujik blouse, coat). A loose fur cape for ladies' wear.
1897 Westm. Gaz. 30 Sept. 3/2 This moujik coat is now too popular.
1901 Ibid. 4 July 3/1 The moujik, that little blouse coat, cut low in the neck and with open fronts [etc.].
175. Mukuzani
[Russ.]
A red wine from Georgia, U.S.S.R.
e.g. 1968 A. H. Gold Wines & Spirits of World 467 The wines tend to be full and the red ones dark.
Mukuzani and Saperavi are two dark strong red wines of 14_ alcoholic strength from the eastern side of
Georgia in the Tiflis region.
178. NIR
[f. the initials of Russ. Nauchno-Issledovatel_skaya Rabota scientific research work], a colour television
system developed in Russia, similar to SECAM;
179. N.K.V.D.
[Russ. Naródny_ Komissariát Vnútrennikh Del]
Soviet Commissariat of Internal Affairs
e.g. 1973 T. Allbeury Choice of Enemies vi. 21 He was wearing an NKVD uniform.
190. nu
[Yiddish, f. Russ. nu well, well now.]
An exclamation variously used to express interrogation, surprise, emphasis, doubt, etc.
e.g. 1971 D. Meiring Wall of Glass xvii. 147 Nu? thought Geyra, So what?
192. oblast
[Russ.]
A second-order administrative subdivision in Imperial Russia and the U.S.S.R.; a Russian province or
region. Also attrib.
e.g. 1976 Survey Spring 57 He embarked on a successful career in party administration, attaining the rank
of oblast First Secretary.
197. okrug
[a. Russ. and Bulg. ókrug.]
In Russia and Bulgaria, a territorial division for administrative and other purposes. Also attrib.
e.g. 1976 Survey Spring 65 There are [in the USSR] 14 union republic central committees, 10 okrug
committees_and 4,243 city and raion committees.
199. oligomictic a.
[f. oligo- + Gr. mixed + -ic.]
1. Petrol.
[ad. Russ. oligomiktovy (M. S. Shvetsov Petrografiya Osadochnykh Porod (1934) viii. 155).]
e.g. 1935 Jrnl. Sedimentary Petrology V. 106/2 Rocks consisting of one to two dominant minerals are
termed oligomictic and those composed of several minerals polymictic._ The book is written in Russian._
The review is based on a typewritten summary in English.
1971 Nature 28 May 247/1 Structureless to planar cross-stratified, sheet-like bodies of oligomictic
conglomerates and subarkoses are interbedded.
2. Limnology. Applied to a lake that exhibits a stable thermal stratification and only rarely undergoes an
overturn.
e.g. 1968 R. W. Fairbridge Encycl. Geomorphol. 617/1 The lake water body is stratified, thus oligomictic.
200. omul
[a. Russ. omul.]
A fish of the salmon family, Coregonus autumnalis, found in Lake Baikal and regions bordering the Arctic
Ocean.
e.g. 1976 _S. Harvester' Siberian Road i. 18 The Cossacks went after sturgeon and omul, a white-fish.
201. ongon
[Russ.]
In the Shamanist religion of the Buriats of Mongolia, an image of a god or spirit supposed to be endowed
with the power of the force it represents; a fetish.
e.g. 1970 New Society 5 Mar. 393/1 The word, “ongon”, means both a spirit and the material representation
of a spirit. Drawings are made only of known spirits, each of which has particular magical powers. Since
the representation is the spirit, the drawings themselves become magical: according to the spirit, an ongon
can cure smallpox, keep young lambs healthy, give protection to fishermen and so on.
202. osseter Zool.
[a. Russ. osétr = Serb. jesetra, Pol. jesiotr, Lith. asetras, ershketras sturgeon.]
A species of sturgeon, Acipenser Güldenstädtii.
e.g. 1887 Chamb. Jrnl. IV. 630/2 The sturgeon_and its kindred the great sturgeon or beluga_, the sewruga_,
the osseter (A. Guldenstadtii), and the small sturgeon or sterlet.
203. Ossetian n. and a. Also Ossetan Osset(e) Ossetic
[f. Russ. osetín, f. Georgian os, oset_i Ossetia (place-name) + -ian.]
A. n.
a. A member of a people of the Central Caucasus, inhabiting North Ossetia (the North Ossetian Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic) and South Ossetia (an Autonomous Oblast of the Georgian Soviet Socialist
Republic).
b. The language of this people, one of the Eastern Iranian group.
e.g. 1971 L. Zgusta et al Man. Lexicogr. vii. 300 The glosses would probably be given in Ossetic, the
dictionary being determined for the Ossetes.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to this people or their language.
e.g. 1974 Country Life 24 Jan. 146/4 An Ossete folk-ballad, adapted by the poet Kosta Khetagurov (the
Caucasian equivalent of Robert Burns), begins: The fox has been whetting her teeth for the badger.
204. ostrog
[Russ. ostróg stockade, blockhouse, f. o = ob about + sterech - to guard.]
A house or village in Siberia, surrounded by a palisade or wall, and serving as a fort or prison.
e.g. 1833 R. Pinkerton Russia 215 From the ostrog we proceeded to the town hospital.
206. otriad
[a. Russ. otryád a detachment.]
In Russia: a detachment, group of soldiers (see also quot. 1916).
e.g. 1916 Yorkshire Post 23 Feb. 4/4 An Englishman who works with a volunteer ambulance or otriad,
behind the Russian lines.
1933 Vanessa iv. i. 672 The Retreat had begun and with the rest of the Otriad he had been flung into the
little town of O.
207. Ouspenskyist
[f. the name of Peter Demianovich Ouspensky (1878_1947), Russian philosopher + -ist.]
A follower of Ouspensky or his teaching. Also
Ouspenskian, Ouspenskyite adjs.
e.g. 1975 M. Bradbury History Man v. 81 A radical Catholic priest and his Ouspenskyite mistress.
211. pedology
[f. pedo- + -ology. Cf. G. pedologie (e.g. F. A. Fallou Pedologie (1862) 1. 9), Russ. pedológiya (e.g.
Entsikl. Slovar_ (1898) XXIVa s.v. pochvovedenie; Pochvovedenie (1900) II. 140, (1902) IV. 1; the Fr.
title of this periodical was La Pédologie from its inception in 1899).
The usual Russ. word for the subject has always been pochvovédenie, lit. soil science (cf. G.
bodenkunde, given by Fallou as a synonym of pedologie). The Eng. word pedology occurs in the galley
proofs of an unpublished dict. of _ 1900_10, according to L. D. Stamp Gloss. Geogr. Terms (1961) 358,
but prob. only in reference to foreign equivalents.]
The scientific study of soil, esp. its formation, nature, and classification; soil science.
e.g. 1973 Nature 27 July p. ii/1 (Advt.), Scientists interested in sediments and in allied fields such as
pedology, geomorphology, soils engineering and cement technology will find in this book a valuable
research tool.
Hence
pedologic, -_logical adjs., of or pertaining to pedology or soil;
pedologically adv., in pedological terms; as regards pedology;
pedologist, one who studies pedology.
e.g. 1974 Nature 4 Jan. 74/1 There was no known method by which termites or pedological processes could
bring about the observed accumulation of calcium carbonate in termite mounds.
217. phytosociology
[ad. Russ. fitosotsiologiya.]
The study of plant communities, their composition and structure. So
phytosociological, a., phytosociologically adv.;
phytosociologist, one engaged in this study.
e.g. 1977 Dćdalus Fall 130 In some of its branches, such as biogeography and phytosociology, the systems
of classification and quantitative description reached phantasmagoric extremes.
218. pirog Also piroga, piroque. Pl. pirogen (a. Yiddish), pirogi (a. Russ.), pirogs.
[Russ. piróg, Yiddish (a. Russ.) pirog.]
A large pie. Cf. piroshki n. pl.
e.g. 1971 Guardian 23 July 9/6 Pirogi and Piroshki, literally big pies and baby pies.
219. piroshki n. pl. Also pirotchki, pirozhki, pyrochki. Occas. in sing. piro_shok
[a. Russ. pirozhkí pl. of pirozhók, dim. of piróg (pirog).]
Small patties.
e.g. 1977 J. Wambaugh Black Marble (1978) x. 218 Valnikov held a paper plate stacked with golden
pastries and said, _Piroshki. They're very light and filled with cheese or meat. My brother usually makes
them both ways.'
223. podzol Soil Sci. Also podsol, and formerly also with capital initial.
[a. Russ. podzól, f. pod- under- + zolá ash.]
An acidic, generally infertile soil which is characterized by a well-marked white or grey ash-like subsurface
layer from which minerals have been leached into a lower dark-coloured layer, and which occurs esp. under
coniferous trees or heath vegetation in moist, usu. temperate climates (typically in parts of N. Russia). Orig.
applied only to the ash-like layer itself.
e.g. 1973 Sci. Amer. Dec. 64/2 The tropical podzols are useless even for shifting agriculture; the Dayak
peoples of Borneo call them kerangas: _land on which one cannot grow rice'.
podzolic (or -ds-) a., of the nature of or resembling a podzol in possessing a layer from which some
leaching of bases has occurred.
e.g. 1973 P. A. Colinvaux Introd. Ecol. iii. 46 Some heath lands of northern Europe, with acid litter and
leached soils, reveal podzolic profiles.
224. pogrom n.
[Russian pogrom, devastation, destruction.]
a. An organized massacre in Russia for the destruction or annihilation of any body or class: orig. and esp.
applied to those directed against the Jews.
e.g. 1979 O. Sela Petrograd Consignment 142 Wasn't he eager to go back to Russia to read the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion again; wasn't another pogrom all he lived for.
b. In general use: an organized, officially tolerated, attack on any community or group. Also fig.
e.g. 1975 R. Browning Emperor Julian iii. 51 Hannibalianus had been killed in 337 in the pogrom of his
relations engineered by Constantius.
c. attrib. and Comb.
e.g. 1978 D. Murphy Place Apart viii. 167 Few of us would wish to see our army crossing the [Irish] border
to fight Loyalist paramilitaries._ If another _pogrom' situation did arise_it would make more sense to
welcome_refugees into the Republic.
pogromist (also stressed ‘pogromist), an organizer of or participant in a pogrom.
e.g. 1978 I. B. Singer Shosha xiv. 254 People sacrificed themselves for Stalin, for Petlura, for Machno, for
every pogromist.
229. polymictic a.
[f. as prec. + -ic.]
1. Petrol.
[ad. Russ. polimiktovy (M. S. Shvetsov Petrografiya Osadochnykh Porod (1934) viii. 155).]
e.g. 1969 S. H. Haughton Geol. Hist. Southern Afr. iv. 89 At various horizons above the Intermediate Reefs
bands of polymictic conglomerates occur.
2. Limnology. Applied to a lake that has no stable thermal stratification but exhibits perennial circulation.
e.g. 1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. V. 523/2 In addition there are_low-altitude tropical
oligomictic lakes with irregular circulation, and high-altitude tropical polymictic lakes with continuous
circulation.
233. pood Forms: pode, poude, poad(e, (p_d), pudde, pud, poud, pood.
[Russ. pudu, ad. LG. or Norse pund pound.]
A Russian weight, equal to 40 lb. Russian, or slightly more than 36 lb. avoirdupois.
e.g. 1952 E. H. Carr Bolshevik Revolution II. xix. 285 Kalinin estimated the total of relief supplies up to
December 1921 at 1,800,000 puds of grain and 600,000 puds of other foodstuffs from home stocks.
234. fellow-traveller
transf. One who sympathizes with the Communist movement without actually being a party member. Also
in extended uses.
The equiv. Russ. popútchik (Trotsky) was used of non-communist writers sympathizing with the Revolution.
e.g. 1936 Nation (N.Y.) 24 Oct. 471/1 The new phenomenon is the fellow-traveler. The term has a Russian
background and means someone who does not accept all your aims but has enough in common with you to
accompany you in a comradely fashion part of the way. In this campaign both Mr. Landon and Mr.
Roosevelt have acquired fellow-travelers.
Hence (as a back-formation)
fellow-travel v. intr., to be a fellow-traveller; trans., to support (the Communist movement) as a fellow-
traveller; freq. as
fellow-travelling vbl. n. and ppl. a.
e.g. 1963 Observer 18 Aug. 20/8 The Germans who fellow-travelled with Hitler in the 1930s were guilty of
a gross dereliction of national duty.
241. Profintern
[Russ. Profintérn, f. Krásny_ Internatsionál Profsoyúzov Red International of Trade Unions, after
Komintérn Comintern.]
An international organization of left-wing Trade Unions, founded in 1921 and dissolved in 1937.
e.g. 1977 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 26 May 26/4 Nikolsky was a representative of the Profintern, the Trade Unions
International.
242. prolet-
Abbrev.
[after Russ. prolet- in proletkult for proletárskaya kultúra proletarian culture]
of proletarian a. and n., as in prolet-art, -cult, (-kult), -cultist, -cultural adj., used to designate cultural
activities (esp. such as were started in Russia after 1917) which supposedly reflect or encourage a purely
proletarian ethos.
e.g. 1976 T. Eagleton Crit. & Ideology v. 165 Such purely gestural, shamefaced materialism will
provoke_the reaction of those who press their questioning of the intrinsic élitism of literature and its
aesthetics to neo-proletkult limits.
243. Prospekt Also with small initial.
[a. Russ. prospékt.]
In the Soviet Union: a long, wide street; an avenue, a boulevard. Esp. used of the great avenues of
Leningrad, e.g. Nevsky Prospekt.
e.g. 1979 O. Sela Petrograd Consignment 105 Petrograd was a tedious panorama of featureless white. Sleds
slipped noiselessly along the prospekts.
244. protopope
[ad. Russ. protopopu: see proto- and pope n.2; after eccl. Gr. protopapas. So F. protopope.]
A chief priest, or priest of higher rank, in the Greek Church.
e.g. 1900 Pilot 7 July 6/2 One formerly a playmate, but now the fiercest opponent of Nikon, the protopop
Avvakum.
245. provodnik
[Russ.]
In the U.S.S.R.:
a. A guide.
b. An attendant or guard on a train.
e.g. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 21 Feb. 7/2 A provodnik is shaving in one of the two lavatories at the
height of the morning rush.
246. purga
[Russ.]
A blizzard of very fine snow in the U.S.S.R.
e.g. 1978 Soviet Geogr. XIX. 574 A purga is not just any snowstorm; it is a violent storm associated with an
invasion of cold air.
247. puschkinia
[mod.L. (J. M. F. Adams 1805, in Nova Acta Acad. Petropolitanć XIV. 164), f. the name of Apollos
Mussin-Puschkin (d. 1805), Russian chemist and plant collector + -ia1.]
A small spring-flowering bulbous plant of the genus so called, belonging to the family Liliacea, and bearing
spikes of blue or white cup-shaped flowers; also called the striped squill.
e.g. 1974 H. G. W. Fogg Compl. Handbk. Bulbs vii. 122/2 As long as they are not forced, puschkinias can
be grown indoors like crocuses.
249. Rabkrin
[a. Russ. rabkrín, f. rab(ňche)-kr(est_yánskaya) in(spéktsiya) worker-peasant inspectorate.]
An organization established in 1920 by Lenin to examine the conformity of state organizations to official
policy.
e.g. 1949 I. Deutscher Stalin vii. 230 The Rabkrin, as the Commissariat was called, was set up to control
every branch of the administration.
257. residence
[tr. Russ. residentura.]
A group or organization of intelligence agents in a foreign country.
1969 H. H. Cooper Cave with Two Exits i. 69 In Rome he was met by a young man from the Residence. The
Resident himself was extremely secure. His cover was strictly diplomatic.
260. riza
[Russ., f. OSlav. riza garment.]
A metal shield or plaque framing the painted face and other features of a Russian icon, and engraved with
the lines of the completed picture.
e.g. 1978 Daily Tel. 24 Aug. 12/5 Among the collection is a 17th century icon of the Virgin of Kazan, with
embossed silver-gilt riza_dating from the end of the 19th century.
261. rouble Forms: rubbel, rubbell, rubble, roble, robell. ruble, rubel. rouble (rooble).
[a. Russ. ruble (also rublevik' silver rouble), of doubtful origin. The current English spelling has been
adopted from French.]
1. The Russian monetary unit, in early times a money of account equal in value to an English mark, or 13s.
4d., subsequently a silver coin (worth, e.g. in 1897, 2s. 112d.).
Florio (1611) defines Robbone as _a coine of gold in Muscouy called a rubble or roble', but see quot. 1617
here. Roubles of gold and platina have been coined in the 19th cent.
e.g. 1635 E. Pagitt Christianogr. (1639) 17 Some of their Bishops have 2000, some 3000 Rubbles per
annum.
1855 Englishwoman in Russia 37 He came to borrow a few rubles, which she kindly gave him.
1891 Melbourne Argus 7 Nov. 13/7 The yearly pay of a private [in the Russian army] is 2 roubles 70
copecks.
2. A paper money of less value than the silver rouble (see quots.).
The rouble is now available primarily in paper form.
e.g. 1875 Bedford Sailor's Pocket-bk. ix. (ed. 2) 317, 100 Copecks = 1 Silver Rouble = 3s. 2d. Paper money
is the chief medium of payment. The paper Rouble is worth about 2s. 6d. sterling.
264. Russia
[med.L., f. Russi the Russians: see Russ. The Russian form Rossiya appears to have been adopted from
Byzantine Gr.]
The name of the country in the east of Europe, used attributively.
1. a. Russia leather, a very durable leather made of skins impregnated with oil distilled from birch-bark,
extensively used in bookbinding.
e.g. 1871 M. Collins Marq. & Merch. II. viii. 227 Russia leather odorous with the aroma of silver birch-
rind.
attrib.
e.g. 1704 Lond. Gaz. No. 4027/4 With a new Russia Leather Saddle and Bridle.
b. ellipt. in this sense.
e.g. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. xxxvi, The scent of russia from the books.
attrib. and Comb.
1846 G. Dodd Brit. Manuf. VI. 103 An elegant morocco or russia-bound book.
2. a. In the specific names of various articles, chiefly made in, or imported from, Russia, as Russia ashes,
braid, crash, drab, duck, etc. (see quots.).
e.g. 1882 Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlewk. 429/1 Russia Braids. These are made respectively in two
materials---Mohair and Silk.
b. ellipt. for Russia iron, linen.
e.g. 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl. 772/2 s.v. Russian Iron, The American product, or imitation Russia.
Russianism, Russianist, Russianize- to Russify, Russianness (shifts & Englishized forms)
265. Russki, a. and n. slang or colloq. Also Roosky, Ruski, Rusky, Russky.
[ad. Russ. Russkiy.]
Russian a. and n. Hence
Russki-land, Russia.
e.g. 1961 Even. Bull. (Philadelphia) 29 Mar. 22/3 (caption) Keeping up with the (Russki) Joneses.
1978 I. B. Singer Shosha ii. 38 A Russky with all these qualities is awaiting you there.
269. saiga
[a. Russ. sa_ga. Cf. F. saďga.]
A kind of antelope (Saiga tartarica) of the steppes of Russia. Also saiga-antelope.
1801 Shaw Zool. II. ii. 339 The Saiga, or Scythian Antelope.
Ibid. 340 The Saigas are of a migratory disposition.
1896 Lydekker Brit. Mammals 305 The Saiga Antelope.
273. samovar
[Russian samovar, _self-boiler', f. samo- self + variti to boil.]
A Russian tea urn.
1830 tr. Kotzebue's New Voy. II. 22 note, A Samowar, or self-boiler_generally stands in the middle of the
tea-table.
1882 Pall Mall G. 14 June 2/1 The samovar is a tea-kettle which has its fire in a tube running through it,
and which, with a few pieces of lighted charcoal dropped into the tube, maintains the water at boiling point
with a minimum of evaporation.
274. Samoyed n. and a. Forms: Samoit, Samoed, Samoid, Samoied, Samojede, Samoiede, Samoyede,
Samoyed.
[Russian samoyed. The rendering _self-eater' (cf. myasoyed flesh-eater), interpreted as “cannibal”, is
already mentioned by Purchas 1613.]
A. n.
1. One of Mongolian race inhabiting Siberia.
e.g. 1972 Language XLVIII. 206 The Samoyeds make up only one small group of scattered tribes among the
many non-Russian peoples who have inhabited Siberia.
2. Also with small initial. A white or buff dog belonging to the breed so called, once used as working dogs
in the Arctic, and distinguished by a thick, shaggy coat, stocky build, pricked ears, and a tail curled over the
back. Also attrib.
e.g. 1977 G. Marton Alarum 61 The well-fed passengers_probably expected to be carried across immense
ice fields by rough Samoyed dogs.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to the Samoyeds. Also quasi-n., their language.
e.g. 1956 J. Whatmough Language 28 In the north, Samoyede, a member of the same family as the Finnish
dialects.
275. sanitar
[Russ.]
In Russia, a hospital attendant; spec. a medical orderly in the army.
e.g. 1974 F. Farmborough Nurse at Russian Front ii. 30 The 1st Letuchka, (Flying Column)_was staffed
with four surgical sisters,_two doctors,_about 30 sanitars (ambulance orderlies) and an officer.
277. sastruga
[from Russian zastruga groove, from za by + struga deep place]
One of a series of irregular ridges formed on a snow surface by wind erosion and deposition, aligned
parallel to the direction of the prevailing wind.
e.g. 1982 B. W. Aldiss Helliconia Spring ii. 89 Only Yuli had experience of the tundras and zastrugi, which
stretched away to the north of the Quzint.
281. shaman n.
[C17: from Russian shaman, from Tungusian saman, from Pali samana Buddhist monk, ultimately
from Sanskrit srama religious exercise]
A. n. A priest or priest-doctor among various northern peoples of Asia. Hence applied by extension to
similar personages in other parts, esp. a medicine-man of some of the north-western American Indians.
Occasionally in wider sense: an adherent of shamanism. Also more recently, with recognition of the
widespread similarity of primitive beliefs, the term denotes esp. a man or woman who is regarded as having
direct access to, and influence in, the spirit world which is usu. manifested during a trance and empowers
them to guide souls, cure illnesses, etc. Also fig.
e.g. 1979 London Rev. Bks. 25 Oct. 1/1 America lacks this type of magician---the shamans there are
grander, more worldly, more pretentious.
B. adj. (or attrib.) Of or pertaining to a shaman or to shamanism.
e.g. 1901 Contemp. Rev. Jan. 95 The necessary spiritual gifts entitling to the Shaman-office often are
bestowed.
shamanian n., a shamanist;
shamanic a., akin to shamanism; also, of or connected with a shaman. Also
shamanka, shamaness, shamanin, terms sometimes applied to a female shaman.
e.g. 1968 N. K. Sandars Prehist. Art of Europe i. 26 In Siberia there were also women who were
shamankas.
282. shapka
[Russ., = hat.]
A brimless Russian hat of fur or sheepskin.
e.g. 1963 V. Nabokov Gift iv. 271 He never removed either his fur-lined dressing gown or his lambskin
shapka.
283. shashlik
[ad. Russ. shashlýk, ult. f. Turk. sis a spit, skewer; cf. shish kebab.]
An Eastern European and Asian kebab of mutton and garnishings often served on a skewer. Also attrib.
e.g. 1977 N.Y. Times 9 May l2/2 An outdoor shashlik stand just off Ashkhabad's Marx Prospekt was pulling
in passers-by.
285. shchi Also tschee, stchi, stchie, stchee, shtchee, shtchi, shtshi, etc.
[Russian shchi kail.]
Cabbage soup.
e.g. 1977 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 14 Apr. 10/4 In exchange for a few dissident intellectuals the Ibanskians import
from America tons of shchi, the Russian national dish of cabbage soup.
288. shuba Also shooba; anglicized shube ( shoube, shub, shoobe, schub, shoub).
[Russian shuba.]
A fur gown or greatcoat. Also, a piece of fur.
e.g. 1904 F. Whishaw Tiger of Muscovy xxviii, Amy stood dressed in her fur shooba.
292. Siryenian n. and a. Also Sirenian, Syrianian, -jenian, Syryenian, Ziranian, Zyrenian.
[f. mod.L. Syrićnus (ad. Russ. zyryánin.]
e.g. 1911 Ibid. XXVI. 317/2 Syryenians (also Sirianian, Syrjenian, Zyrenian, Ziranian, Zyrian and Zirian),
a tribe belonging to the Permian division of the eastern Finns.
293. skaz
[Russ.]
First-person narrative in which the author assumes a persona. Also attrib.
e.g. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Nov. 1264/4 The narrator [is] a typically Russian busybody in the skaz
tradition.
294. skhod
[Russ.]
In the U.S.S.R. (and pre-Revolutionary Russia), an assembly of villagers. Also selskii skhod
e.g. 1972 T. Shanin Awkward Class ix. 164 A _rural gathering' (sel'skii skhod) was to be established in
parallel with the _land gathering'. The _rural gathering' would consist of all the inhabitants with Soviet
electoral rights within the area of a Rural Soviet.
296. sluggish
[Rendering of Russ. stértaya (shizofreníya), worn, hackneyed (schizophrenia).]
Applied to an alleged type of schizophrenia ascribed to political or religious dissidents confined in state
psychiatric hospitals in the U.S.S.R.
e.g. 1980 Prisoners of Conscience in USSR (Amnesty Internat.) (ed. 2) 184 Schizophrenia, often in its
“sluggish” form, has been the diagnosis most commonly made of dissenters.
302. solod Soil Science. Also soloth. Pl. (sometimes const. as sing.) solodi, soloti; also solods.
[a. Russ. sólod, f. sol- salt.]
A type of soil derived from a solonetz by leaching of saline or alkaline constituents, having a pale, leached
subsurface horizon, and occurring characteristically under grass or shrub vegetation in semi-arid and desert
regions.
e.g. 1974 E. A. Fitzpatrick Introd. Soil Sci. vii. 119 Solods can be regarded as leached solonetzes in which
the upper horizons are strongly bleached becoming pale grey or white.
solodic a., being, resembling, or characteristic of a solod;
solodize v. intr., to change into a solod;
solodization (also solot-), the formation of a solod by the leaching of salts from a solonetz;
solodized (solot-) ppl. a., altered by this process.
e.g. 1978 Faniran & Areola Essent. Soil Study viii. 183 Salinization, solonization, and
solodization_resulting in the formation of solonchaks, solonetz, and solodic soils respectively.
309. sovkhoz Also sovhoz, sovkhos, etc. Pl. sovkhoz, sovkhozes, sovkhozy.
[Russ., f. sov(étskoe khoz(yá_stvo Soviet farm.]
In the U.S.S.R.: a state-owned farm. Also attrib.
e.g. 1967 Bull. Inst. Study USSR (Munich) June 15 A wave of sovkhoz development followed which,
beginning in 1954, did not recede until 1964.
311. Sovnarkom
[a. Russ. sovnarkóm, abbrev. of sovét naródnykh komissárov, council of people's commissars.]
The highest executive and administrative organ of government of the U.S.S.R. (renamed the Council of
Ministers in 1946). Also, a council having analogous functions in one of the republics of the U.S.S.R.
e.g. 1959 E. H. Carr Socialism in One Country II. iv. xx. 244 Even in the domain of treaty-making
Sovnarkom acquired independent constitutional powers.
312. specialist
[tr. Russ. spetsialíst.] In Communist parlance, a person with a specialist knowledge in some area of
science, engineering, or culture; an engineer, scientist.
e.g. 1977 S. Leys’ Chinese Shadows (1978) ii. 101 It [sc. the Tower of the Six Harmonies] is such a sturdy
building that an army of “specialists” would have been necessary to demolish it.
315. Stalinism
[f. Joseph Stalin (Russ. Iósif Stálin), the assumed name of Iosif Vissariónovich Dzhugashvíli (1879-
1953), leader of the Soviet Communist Party and head of state of the Soviet Union + -ism.]
The policies pursued by Stalin, based on but later deviating from Leninism, esp. the formation of a
centralized, totalitarian, objectivist government.
e.g. 1977 Time 21 Mar. 12/2 In a bitter statement, Gui accused the Communists of practicing Stalinism,
calling himself the victim of the chamber’s “will for my political execution”.
319. Stavka
[Russ., f. stavit_ to put, place.]
The general headquarters of the Russian army.
e.g. 1963 P. Fleming Kolchak xiv. 158 The swollen Stavka, besides embodying all the worst technical vices
of Russian military bureaucracy, was rotten to the core with dishonesty, nepotism and intrigue.
321. sterlet Also sterledey, sterledy, starlett, sterled, -ett, -id, (? pl. sterlitz), sterlit, ( sterelet).
[a. Russ. sterlyadi. Cf. G. and F. sterlet.]
A small species of sturgeon, Acipenser ruthenus, found in Russia.
e.g. 1915 B. Digby in Travel July 23 Sterelet, one of the numerous kinds of fishes found in Baikal, is usually
smoked and eaten raw.
attrib.
1860 Wraxall Life in Sea v. 124 Prince Potemkin is said to have frequently paid three hundred roubles for a
Sterlet soup.
323. Stolichnaya
[Russ., lit. “of the capital, metropolitan”.]
The proprietary name of a variety of Russian vodka.
e.g. 1977 J. Wambaugh Black Marble (1978) i. 3 He_stealthily withdrew the bottle of Stolichnaya from the
pocket of his raincoat.
324. stolovaya
[Russ.]
A canteen, a cafeteria.
e.g. 1982 Spectator 27 Mar. 21/3 The food in a Russian stolovaya (or “diner”).
325. Stolypin
[The name of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862_1911), Russian conservative statesman.]
1. Stolypin's necktie, the noose. colloq.
1909 J. R. Ware Passing Eng. 234/2 Stolypin's necktie (Europ. Politics, 1897), the final halter. This term
was brought into fashion in 1907 (Nov._Dec.), at a Duma then recently assembled in St Petersburg. One
Rodicheff, an extreme Radical, brought in the term on 30th November 1907.
1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropćdia IX. 583/1 Stolypin instituted a network of courts-martial._ Within the few
months of their existence they used Stolypin's necktie' (the noose) to execute more than 1,000 defendants.
2. Used attrib. and absol. to designate a type of railway carriage made for the transport of prisoners.
e.g. 1974 T. P. Whitney tr. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago I. ii. i. 491 The prisoners got used to calling
this kind of railroad car a Stolypin car, or, more simply, just a Stolypin.
326. strelitz Hist. Forms: sing. strelits, strelitz, often incorrectly as pl.; pl. strelsey, strelsies, strelitzi,
strelitzes.
[a. Russian strie_lets, archer (pl. strieltsy), agent-n. f. strielyati to shoot with the bow, f. striela arrow.]
A soldier belonging to a body of Russian troops composed of infantry raised by the Tsar Ivan the Terrible
(1533_84) and abolished by Peter the Great in 1682. Also attrib.
e.g. 1904 F. Whishaw Tiger of Muscovy xxxi, A Strelitz soldier lay sleeping at the door leading to the
corridor._ To the Strelitz the Tsar said: _Go quickly,_and follow the Boyar Nagoy.
329. Stundist
[a. Russ. stundist, f. G. stunde hour, said to be used by the German settlers as the name for their
religious meetings: see -ist.]
A member of a large Evangelical sect (called stunda) which arose among the peasantry of South Russia
about 1860, as a result of contact with German Protestant settlers, and in opposition to the doctrine and
authority of the Orthodox Church.
e.g. 1888 Stead Truth about Russia 363 Deputations came to St. Petersburg from the Stundists, the
Molokani, and the Baptists.
attrib.
1893 The Stundists 35 Ivan Golovtchenko, a Stundist preacher_was taken before the Court on a charge of
propagating Stundist doctrines.
331. sudak
[Russian sudák.]
A species of pike-perch (a fish)
e.g. 1973 Nat. Geogr. Mag. May 612/1 All the strange but delicious bounty of the Volga, handsome, fat fish
with names like sazan, sudak.
337. taiga
[a. Russ.]
The swampy coniferous forest area of Siberia; also, the zone of temperate coniferous forest stretching across
Europe and North America.
e.g. 1980 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts Feb. 140/1 These are generally described in terms of bioclimatic zones---arctic,
tundra, taiga, boreal forest, temperate deciduous forests, prairies, desert savanna, and rain forest.
338. Talmudism
fig. in Pol. use
[tr. Russ. talmudízm]
e.g. 1957 R. N. C. Hunt Guide to Communist Jargon xviii. 65 Dogmatism---or Talmudism, as Stalin at
times called it---is defined as “the uncritical acceptance of dogma without considering the conditions of its
application”.
1965 P. O'Donovan et al. United States iii. 56/1 Is this the victory of pragmatism over Constitutional
talmudism?
340. tamizdat
[Russ., f. tam there + izdat, abbrev. of izdat'el'stvo publishing house, after samizdat.]
Russian writings which are published abroad and smuggled back into the U.S.S.R.; also this system of
publication.
e.g. 1982 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Sept. 950/1 It is thus a combination of samizdat and tamizdat (i.e., both
unofficial Soviet and émigré publications).
348. tchin
[Russian chin rank.]
Rank; person or persons of quality.
e.g. 1904 Daily Chron. 29 July 4/4 M. Plehve_well knew that the Tsar, the amiable youngster,_was a tool in
the hands of the omnipotent tchin.
Comb.
1904 Contemp. Rev. Aug. 165 The dismal tchin-ridden Russian villages.
353. thermokarst
[a. Russ. termokárst (M. M. Ermolaev 1932, in Trudy Soveta po Izuch. proizv. Sil: Ser. yakutsk. 211)],
topography in which the melting of permafrost has produced hollows, hummocks, and the like reminiscent
of karst;
e.g. 1970 Globe Mag. 17 Jan. 4/3 Even south of the Alaska Range there is much permafrost within the
forested areas which will create further problems of heat loss, permafrost melt and thermokarst
development.
359. tovarish, tovarich Also tav-; -isch, -ishch, -istch, -itch. Pl. -i.
[ad. Russ. továrishch comrade.]
In the U.S.S.R., comrade (freq. as a form of address).
e.g. 1977 Time 28 Feb. 12/3 To compensate for her lost lover, she found at least one more torrid tovarish.
361. troika
[Russ. trojka.]
1. A Russian vehicle drawn by three horses abreast.
e.g. 1904 Daily Record & Mail 22 Apr. 4, I crossed the Baikal in a troika, a basket sleigh on wooden
runners, drawn by three horses abreast.
2. A group or set of three persons (rarely things) or categories of people associated in power; a three-person
commission or administrative council. Also attrib.
e.g. 1976 M. J. Lasky Utopia & Revolution (1977) ii. 92 Ideas, images, and ideology never quite manage to
be harnessed into a controllable troika.
362. tsarevich, czar-, -wi(t)ch Also spelt (after Polish) czarowitz, -witch, etc.
[a. Russ. tsa_revich, son of a tsar; in Pol. carowicz, F. tsarowitz, Ger. zarewitsch, etc. See tsar.]
A son of a tsar. (Superseded, after the time of Paul I, by veliki knyaz - Grand Duke', lit. great prince'. The
eldest son or hereditary prince had the differentiated title cesarevitch, -witch, Russian tsesarevich, formed
on tsesar_ Cćsar, emperor.)
e.g. 1906 P. Kropotkin Mem. Revolutionist (1908) II. ix. 143 The Tsarevich began to scold the officer.
367. tur
[a. Russ.]
A greyish-brown wild goat, Capra caucasica, native to south-eastern Russia.
e.g. D. Morris Mammals 428 There are several other species which are also called Ibex. These include the
Tur, or Caucasian Ibex.
369. tvorog
[a. Russ. tvórog.]
A soft Russian cheese similar to cottage or curd cheese.
e.g. 1982 L. Chamberlain Food & Cooking of Russia (1983) 245 By Good Friday several pounds of tvorog
(curd cheese) would have been sitting for at least 24 hours under a wooden press to extract the last drops of
whey.
375. uprava
[Russ., = authority.]
In Imperial Russia: the executive board of a municipal council.
e.g. 1954 G. Vernadsky Hist. Russia (ed. 4) x. 221 The representatives elected a board known as the uprava
for a term of three years.
378. Uzbek Also formerly Usbeck, Usbeg, Uzbeg, and other varr.
[a. Russ.]
One of a Turkic people of central Asia, forming the basic population of the Uzbek SSR (Uzbekistan), and
also living in Afghanistan; the language of this people. Also attrib. or as adj.
e.g. 1976 Times 3 Nov. 16/5 A dark-haired agronomist from an Uzbek collective farm.
380. Varagian, a.
[f. mod.L. Varagi (pl.), ad. Old Russian Variagi.]
= Varangian a.
The form Varegian (after the mod.L. variant Varegi) has also been employed.
e.g. 1841 Penny Cycl. XX. 258 A Varagian (probably Danish) freebooter of the Baltic, named Rurik.
Varangian n. and a. Hist.
[f. med. or mod.L. Varang-us, ad. med.Gr. ad. (through Slavonic languages) ON. Vćringi (pl.
Vćringjar), app. f. vár- (f. pl. várar) plighted faith.
In the Old Russian chronicle of Nestor the name occurs as Variagi and Variazi (pl.), and survives in
mod.Russ. varyág a pedlar, Ukrainian varjah a big strong man.]
A. n.
1. One of the Scandinavian rovers who in the 9th and 10th centuries overran parts of Russia and reached
Constantinople; a Northman (latterly also an Anglo-Saxon) forming one of the bodyguard of the later
Byzantine emperors (see B.).
e.g. 1889 Baring-Gould Grettir xliii. 379 The company called the Varangians, who acted as a bodyguard to
the Emperor.
2. The language spoken by these.
e.g. 1831 Scott Ct. Rob. iii, Mustering what few words of Varangian he possessed, which he eked out with
Greek.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to the Varangians; composed of Varangians, etc.
e.g. 1900 Hector H. Munro Rise Russ. Empire ii. 17 A Varangian power had sprung up among the tribes of
the Slavic hinterland.
b. Varangian Guard, the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperors, formed of Varangians.
e.g. 1831 Scott Ct. Rob. ii, This account of the Varangian Guard is strictly historical.
383. vernalization
[f. vernal a. + -ization, as tr. Russ. yarovizátsiya.]
The technique of exposing seeds, young plants, etc., to low temperatures in order to hasten subsequent
flowering; also, the natural process induced by cold weather which this technique imitates. Also transf. and
fig.
e.g. 1971 E. O. Wilson Insect Societies viii. 154/1 The vernalization (chilling) effect that renders Myrmica
and Formica brood queen potent can be interpreted as a token stimulus.
Hence (by back-formation)
vernalize v. trans., to treat or affect (seeds, etc.) in this way;
vernalized ppl. a. (in quots. transf.), vernalizing vbl. n.
e.g. 1976 Sci. Amer. Sept. 99/3 The crop flowers and produces grain in the spring after being vernalized, or
induced to flower, by the low temperatures in winter.
384. verst Forms: werste, werst, worst, wurste. verst, verste, vorst; verse (pl. versse), ferse.
[ad. Russ. verstá, partly through G. werst and F. verste.]
A Russian measure of length equal to 3500 English feet or about two-thirds of an English mile.
e.g. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. II. ii. 204 A country house of the Tzaar's seven versts from Moscow.
391. volost
[Russ. volost_.]
The smallest rural administrative subdivision in Imperial Russia and the U.S.S.R. (abolished in 1930).
e.g. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropćdia XVI. 59/1 Kiselev provided for a measure of self-government under
which the mayor of the volost (a district grouping several villages or peasant communes) was elected by
male householders.
392. Votyak n. (a.) Also Votiak.[Russ.]
1. A member of a Finno-Ugrian people inhabiting the Udmurt
republic in the northwestern region of the U.S.S.R. Also attrib. or as adj.
e.g. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropćdia VII. 313/1 In the lud sanctuaries of the Votyaks, worship was performed
by members of the family.
2. The language of this people, belonging to the Permian branch of the Finno-Ugrian family.
e.g. 1932 W. L. Graff Language & Languages 406 Votyak (about 400,000) is situated between the Viatka
and the Kama.
393. vozhd
[Russ., lit. = chief'.]
A leader, one who is in supreme authority: applied esp. to the Russian statesman Joseph Stalin (1879-1953).
e.g. 1959 W. Treadgold Twentieth Cent. Russia xviii. 289 Even the top functionaries were subject to Stalin's
supreme power, and the word Vozhd (Leader) came to be used openly to acknowledge and proclaim that
fact.
1978 Encounter Feb. 42/1 The Vozhd of Moscow made his exit in triumph.
398. yeri
[a. Russ.]
The name of the Russian vowel y, the twenty-eighth letter of the Russian alphabet.
e.g. 1921 E. Sapir Language ix. 212 Both nasalized vowels and the Slavic “yeri” are demonstrably of
secondary origin in Indo-European.
1977 Word 1972 XXVIII. 249 The /ď/ is a back unrounded vowel, similar to the Russian yeri.
399. yuft Also youghten, jucten, juff, juft, youft.
[a. Russ. yuft, yukht, whence also G. juften, juchten.]
Russia leather.
e.g. 1853 Ure Dict. Arts (ed. 4) II. 60 The Russians have long been possessed of a method of making a
peculiar leather, called by them jucten, dyed red with the aromatic saunders wood.
400. yurt Forms: jourt, jurt, y(o)urte, yurta, yuert, yort, yurt, yurta, yourt.
[ad. Russ. yurta, through F. yourte or G. jurte.]
A semi-subterranean dwelling or hut of the natives of northern and central Asia, usually formed of timber
covered with earth or turf. Also, a circular skin- or felt-covered tent, with collapsible frame, used by the
nomadic peoples of Siberia and Central Asia. Also transf. and attrib.
e.g. 1981 Nordic Skiing Jan. 51/2 Skiing the system of five yurts set five miles apart in the Sawtooth
Mountains is what Leonard Expeditions is all about.
407. Zyrian n. and a. Also Syrian, Syryane, Syryen, (and esp.) Zyryan.
[ad. Russ. Zyryánin: see -ian.]
A. n. A member of the Komi people of northern central U.S.S.R.
b. The language of this people; = Komi b.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to this people or their language.
e.g. 1978 K. Rédei (title) Zyrian folklore texts.
8.1.3.1 Bohemian
410. Taborite
[ad. G. Taboriten pl., ad. Boh. taborzhina, f. tabor tabor n.; so called from their encampment on a
craggy height, now the town of Tabor in Bohemia.]
A member of the extreme party or section of the Hussites led by Zizska.
e.g. 1861 J. Gill Banished Count vi. 68 The Calixtines might be styled the Gallicans of Bohemia, and the
Taborites the Protestants.
8.1.3.2 Czech
415. foreground, v.
[f. the n.]
trans. To place in the foreground. Hence
foregrounding vbl. n.; spec. in Linguistics
[rendering Czech aktualisace modernization (Havránek and Weingart Spisovná čeština a jazyková
kultura (1932))],
the use of unorthodox or unexpected devices in language.
e.g. 1962 S. R. Levin Ling. Struct. Poetry ii. 17 Foregrounded linguistic elements call attention to
themselves.
1964 P. L. Garvin Prague School Reader p. viii, Automatization refers to the stimulus normally expected in
a social situation; foregrounding---in Czech aktualisace---on the other hand refers to a stimulus not
culturally expected in a social situation and hence capable of provoking special attention.
417. hácek n.
[from Czech]
A diacritic mark (ˇ) placed over certain letters in order to modify their sounds, esp. used in Slavonic
languages to indicate various forms of palatal articulation, as in the affricate ´and the fricative trill ąused in
Czech.
e.g. 1984 E. Stankiewicz Grammars & Dict. Slavic Lang. 3 Hus replaced the medieval system of digraphs
with one of diacritics, among which the dot (later replaced by a hácek) marked the palatals.
424. robot
[Czech, f. robota forced labour; used by Karel Capek (1890-1938) in his play R.U.R. (“Rossum's
Universal Robots”) (1920).]
1. a. One of the mechanical men and women in Capek's play; hence, a machine (sometimes resembling a
human being in appearance) designed to function in place of a living agent, esp. one which carries out a
variety of tasks automatically or with a minimum of external impulse.
e.g. 1980 Times 1 July 19/5 A real robot is programmable; it can be programmed to perform different, and
changing tasks. In 1978 Japan put 1,100 playback or programmable robots into its factories.
b. A person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical; an automaton.
e.g. 1977 G. W. H. Lampe God as Spirit ii. 51 The person who is “seized” by the Spirit is thought of as a
passive object, temporarily reduced to the status of a robot.
c. Chiefly S. Afr. An automatic traffic-signal.
e.g. 1974 Eastern Province Herald 2 Oct. 9 Vandals removed the lamps from seven traffic robots and the
flashing head from a warning pole.
d. A robot bomb. temporary.
1944 Daily Tel. 11 July 1/5 Many of the robots launched against England on Sunday night finished up in
the sea.
1944 J. Lees-Milne Prophesying Peace (1977) 86 From here Jamesy saw his first robot.
2. attrib. and Comb., as robot army, astronaut, -brain, clerk, -land, -maker, masses, (petrol) station, -pilot,
satellite, system, type, -worker; robot-controlled, -like (also adv.), -run adjs.;
robot bomb = flying bomb s.v. flying vbl. n. 3;
robot plane,
(a) = queen bee s.v. queen n. 14;
(b) = robot bomb;
robot roost, a place for the storage of robot bombs;
robot teacher, an electronic teaching aid;
robot train, a robot-controlled underground train.
e.g.1959 H. Barnes Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 177 It is convenient to mount a Robot-type camera in a water
tight case, usually fastened to a pole.
1935 H. G. Wells Things to Come 13 All the balderdash about “robot workers” and ultra skyscrapers, etc.,
etc., should be cleared out of your minds.
Hence
roboteer, an expert in the making of robots;
robotesque a., resembling or suggestive of a robot;
robotian a., of or belonging to a robot or robots;
robotism, mechanical behaviour or character;
robotnik
[-nik], a person behaving with mindless obedience to authority;
robotry, the condition or behaviour of robots;
roboty a., robot-like.
1970 A. Toffler Future Shock ix. 180 Despite setbacks and difficulties, the roboteers are moving forward.
426. Sokol
[Czech, lit. “falcon”.]
A Slav gymnastic society first formed in Prague in 1862 (and disbanded in Czechoslovakia in 1952),
bearing the falcon as its ensign, and aiming to promote a communal spirit and physical fitness. Also, (a
member of) a club in this society.
e.g. 1978 Chicago June 56/2 The program will include folk dancing as well as calisthenics and apparatus
work. Sponsored by the Central District of the American Sokol Organization.
8.1.4 Bulgarian
429. Bulgar n.
[ad. med.L. Bulgarus (F. Bulgare, G. Bulgar), ad. OBulg. Blugarinu (Bulg. Balgarin, Russ. Bolgáry
pl., Bolgárin sing.).]
Any member of an ancient Finnish tribe who conquered the Slavs of M_sia in the seventh century a.d. and
settled what is now Bulgaria, becoming Slavonic in language; a native or inhabitant of Bulgaria. Also attrib.
or as adj., Bulgarian.
e.g. 1965 H. M. Smyser in Bessinger & Creed Medieval & Linguistic Stud. 93 The Bulgars and the so-
called Jewish Khazars, about whom Ibn Fadlan learned from his Bulgar hosts.
Bulgarize v. trans., to make Bulgarian in character;
so Bulgarization.
e.g. 1925 Glasgow Herald 2 Oct. 5 Fully Bulgarised Macedonians.
433. Pomak
[Bulg.]
A Muslim Bulgarian.
e.g. 1972 D. Dakin Unification of Greece 269 The Slav minority, which included 16,000 Pomaks, was about
80,000.
439. cravat n. Forms: 7 crabbat, crabat, cravett, crevet, cravatt, crevat, cravat, ( gravat).
[a. F. cravate (1652 in Hatzfeld), an application of the national name Cravate Croat, Croatian, a. G.
Krabate (Flem. Krawaat, ad. Croato-Serbian Khrvat, Hrvat, OSlav. Khruvat, of which Croat is
another modification: cf. the following
1703 Lond. Gaz. No. 3903/2 Monsieur de Guiche Colonel-General of the Regiments of Horse called
the Cravates. 1721 De Foe Mem. Cavalier (1840) 119 We fell foul with two hundred Crabats. 1752
Hume Ess. ii. vii. I. 355 The troops are filled with Cravates and Tartars, Hussars and Cossacs.]
1. a. An article of dress worn round the neck, chiefly by men.
It came into vogue in France in the 17th c. in imitation of the linen scarf worn round their necks by the
Croatian mercenaries. When first introduced it was of lace or linen, or of muslin edged with lace, and tied
in a bow with long flowing ends, and much attention was bestowed upon it as an ornamental accessory. In
this form it was originally also worn by women. More recently the name was given to a linen or silk
handkerchief passed once (or twice) round the neck outside the shirt collar and tied with a bow in front; also
to a long woollen comforter wrapped round the neck to protect from cold out of doors.
e.g. 1888 Frith Autobiog. III. xii. 236 Dickens wore one of the large cravats which had not then gone out of
fashion.
b. fig. in reference to hanging or strangling.
e.g. 1820 Byron Juan v. lxxxix, With tough strings of the bow. To give some rebel Pacha a cravat.
c. A scarf or necklet of lace, fur, etc., worn by women.
e.g. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 11 Nov. 13/2 The cravat effect of the ermine on the shoulders is charming.
d. Surg.
e.g 1900 G. M. Gould Pocket Med. Dict. (ed. 4) 186 Cravat, a bandage made from a triangular cloth.
2. attrib. and Comb., as
cravat-goose, a name for the Canada Goose (Bernicla canadensis), from the white mark on its throat;
cravat-string, the part by which the cravat was tied.
e.g. 1795 Hull Advertiser 13 June 4/1 With cravat puddings battle wage.
1838 Penny Cycl. XI. 308 The Canada Goose, or Cravat Goose L'Oie ŕ cravate of the French.
cravat v. trans., to furnish with a cravat, fig. to cover as with a cravat; intr. to put on a cravat.
cravatless a., without a cravat.
cravatted a., wearing a cravat.
cravatteer, one who ties a cravat. (All more or less nonce-wds.)
e.g. 1814 Syd. Smith Mem. & Lett. (1855) II. cvi, Douglas alarmed us the other night with the croup. I
cravatted his throat with blisters, and fringed it with leeches.
1827 Lytton Pelham xxxiii, I redoubled my attention to my dress; I coated and cravatted.
1834 Blackw. Mag. XXXVI. 779 Pozzlethwayte was cravat-less.
1848 Thackeray Van. Fair I, The young man handsomely cravatted.
1859 Chamb. Jrnl. XI. 319 The master of the wardrobe put the cravat round the royal neck, while the
“cravatteer” tied it.
440. Glagolitic
[from New Latin glagoliticus, from Serbo-Croatian glagolica the Glagolitic alphabet; related to Old
Church Slavonic glagol° word]
adj. of, relating to, or denoting a Slavic alphabet whose invention is attributed to Saint Cyril, preserved only
in certain Roman Catholic liturgical books found in Dalmatia.
441. Morlach n. and a. Also Morlacchi (pl.), Morlacchian, Morlacco, Morlack, Morlak.
[ad. It. Morlacco, pl. -cchi (also Croatian Morlak, pl. -laci; also Morovlah), ad. late L. Morovlachus.]
A. n. A member of a Vlach people centred on the eastern Adriatic port of Ragusa (mod. Dubrovnik) and,
from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, in parts of maritime Croatia and northern Dalmatia, forming the
country known eventually as Morlacchia, being later incorporated with Slavic peoples.
B. adj. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Morlacchia or its people.
e.g. 1849 A. A. Paton Highlands & Islands of Adriatic II. iii. 32 The Morlack principle is to allow the man
to grow as the beast of the forest.
Ibid. 33 The Morlack is the best soldier and the worst citizen in the Austrian empire.
1922 D. H. Low tr. Kraljevic's Ballads p. xii, In 1775 a translation by Werthes of the Morlacchian section
was published at Berne.
1968 Ibid. XXIII. 93/2 There were also colonies of the Morlachs in the interior of the ancient Serbia.
443. dinar
[a. Serbian dinar, f. L. denarius.]
The monetary unit of Yugoslavia (formerly of Serbia).
e.g. 1927 Economic Jugoslavia 34 The National Bank has paid up capital to the amount of 30 million
dinars.
448. Croat
[ad. mod.L. (pl.) Croatae (F. Croate, G. Kroat), ad. Serbo-Croatian Hrvat.]
a. A native or inhabitant of the former Austrian province of Croatia, now forming part of Yugoslavia; one of
a race descended from the people which occupied that country in the seventh century.
b. A soldier of a former French cavalry regiment, composed mainly of Croats.
c. The language of the Croats. Also attrib. or as adj.
e.g. 1942 L. B. Namier Conflicts 48 In Yugoslavia the conflict between Croats and Serbs offered the Nazis
rich opportunities for political intrigue.
1959 J. Remak Sarajevo iii. 42 Franz Ferdinand replied, ending with a sentence spoken in Croat.
450. kolo
[Serbo-Croatian, = wheel.]
A Yugoslav dance performed in a circle.
e.g. 1969 Daily Tel. 5 Nov. 13/6 The dancers launched themselves on an old Bosnian dance, a silent kolo
from Glamotch.
451. paprika
[Hungarian, f. Serbo-Croat pŕpar pepper (see H. H. Bielfeldt 1965, in Sitzungsber. d. deutsch. Akad.
d. Wissensch. zu Berlin: Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur u. Kunst i. 20).]
1. A condiment made from the dried, ground fruits of certain varieties of the sweet pepper, Capsicum
annuum. Also attrib. and fig.of several European varieties of the sweet pepper, Capsicum annuum, bearing
mildly flavoured fruits.
e.g. 1978 Times 16 Mar. 25/4 The paprikas grow freely [under glass] as though Holland were a tropical
country.
3. The orange-red colour of paprika. Also attrib.
e.g. 1972 Guardian 11 Aug. 9/6 The colour combinations are: lemon with navy/lemon plaid, and paprika
with wine/yellow plaid.
4. Used attrib. to designate various dishes flavoured with either the condiment or the vegetable.
e.g. 1969 R. & D. De Sola Dict. Cooking 168/1 Paprika butter, butter sauce colored and flavored with
paprika.
1977 K. Benton Red Hen Conspiracy ix. 53 The table was set with dishes ranging from the delicate flesh
tones of Parma ham, the rusty scarlet of paprika sausage, [etc.].
452. polje Physical Geogr. Also polye. Pl. poljes, polja, (after Ger.) poljen.
[Serbo-Croat polje field.]
An enclosed plain in a karstic region, esp. Yugoslavia, that is larger than a uvala and usu. has steep
enclosing walls and a covering of alluvium.
e.g. 1958 Geogr. Jrnl. CXXIV. 41 Some of the largest polja are found among the Dinaric Alps in the
hinterland of Split.
1972 Science 12 May 664/3 The perennial flooding of the farmlands in the poljes of Yugoslavia.
455. slatko
[Serbo-Croatian, lit. sugared fruit.]
(See quots.)
e.g. 1941 R. West Black Lamb & Grey Falcon II. 111 The gallery, here walled in though it is open in most
monasteries, where the visitors are given slatko, the ceremonial offering of sugar or jam and glasses of cold
water.
1961 Times 9 Sept. 11/3 In the hostelry guests are offered slatko, the ceremonial offering of sugar or jam.
456. slava
[Serbo-Croatian, lit. honour, renown.]
A festival of a family saint in Yugoslavia, a name-day.
e.g. 1976 New Yorker 22 Mar. 68/3 He remembers the priest blessing the house on his father's slava, or
name day.
457. slivovitz n.
[from Serbo-Croatian şljivovica, from sljiva plum]
a plum brandy from E Europe.
e.g. 1976 New Yorker 22 Mar. 47/1 He sits by the kitchen window of his little flat,_drinking the slivovitz he
smuggles into Sweden each September in carefully emptied beer bottles.
1958 P. Kemp No Colours or Crest viii. 172 A flask of excellent Prizren slivovic.
461. Ustashi n. pl. (Also taken as sing. with pl. -s.) Also -chi, -ci, -sha, -sa, -se, -si.
[a. Serbo-Croatian Ustaše pl., Ustaša sing., insurgent rebel.]
(Members of) a party and separatist movement of Croatians; the soldiers and supporters of the autonomous
Croatian régime between 1941 and 1944: as sing., a member or supporter of the Croatian separatist
movement. Also attrib.
e.g. 1973 Nation Rev. (Melbourne) 24-30 Aug. 1405/1 Frequent statements that the Ustasha exists in
Australia and that the croatian community condones terrorist acts.
1980 Listener 28 Feb. 265/3 The Ustashas were Croat Fascist collaborators.
466. Yugo
colloq. abbrev. of Yugoslavian a. and n.
e.g. 1963 I. Fleming On H.M. Secret Service xi. 117 “Which one was it, anyway?” “One of the Yugos.
Bertil.”
1982 I. I. Magdalen' Search for Anderson i. x. 47 There was something wrong about that Yugo shoot-out. It
stank.
481. Mariavite
[Pol. Mariawita, f. L. phr. qui Marić vitam imitantur.]
A member of a Polish Christian sect which flourished in the early 20th century; also attrib.
e.g. 1957 Oxf. Dict. Chr. Ch. 857/2 Mariavites, a Polish sect, founded in 1906 by J. Kowalski, a priest of
Warsaw, and Felicia Kozlowska, a Tertiary sister, on their excommunication from the RC Church.
487. Piast
[Polish, after Piast, the name of the good peasant (reputed to have lived in the 9th c.) from whom the
Polish kings were said to be descended.]
A native Pole of regal or ducal rank; hence, a man of genuine Polish descent.
e.g. 1847 Mrs. A. Kerr tr. Ranke's Hist. Servia i. 11 Poland had, under the last Piasts, allied itself more
closely to the Western States, in order to obtain protection from a similar subjugation.
attrib.
1833 Alison Hist. Europe xvii. (1847) V. 14 The kings of the Piast race made frequent and able efforts to
create a gradation of rank in the midst of that democracy.
488. polacca
[It., orig. adj. fem. of polacco Polish, ad. Ger. Polack, a. Pol. Polak a Pole, a native of Poland.]
A Polish dance, a polonaise; also the music for it. Also applied more widely to other music of a (supposed)
Polish character. Also attrib. and in phr. alla polacca.
e.g. 1975 Gramophone July 174/2 In the finale with its polacca rhythms, and particularly in the obviously
Slavonic episodes_, the Broadwood does increasingly suggest a Hungarian cymbalom.
489. Polack n. (a.) Also Polake, Polaque, -eak, -ach, ( -ak) Pollack, Pullack and with lower-case
initial.
[a. Pol. Polak a Pole; Ger. Polack, F. Polaque.]
A. n.
1. A native or inhabitant of Poland; a Pole; in quot. 1609, the king of Poland. So
Polaker Obs. rare.
e.g. 1933 S. K. Padover Let Day Perish 140 You cowardly little sneak! It's craven pups like you that make
the Polacks trample on us! If we Jews would learn to kill like they do, the---Polacks would grovel at our
feet---!
2. A Jew from Poland.
e.g. 1909 Cent. Dict. (Suppl.) Polack, a name given to the Jews of the Polish provinces, by their Lithuanian
co-religionists.
3. N. Amer. A (usu. disparaging) term for a Polish immigrant or person of Polish descent.
e.g. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 26 June 1/3 The Crusher's a clean-living Polack from Milwaukee who
don't truck with no drugs or bad women.
B. adj. Polish. Also, of Polish origin or descent.
e.g. 1974 L. Deighton Spy Story xix. 199 Any sign of that goddamn Polack sub?
491. polka n.
[f. prec. n., perh. with reference to Polish Polka a Polish woman: cf. polonaise.]
A woman's tight-fitting jacket, usually knitted: more fully polka-jacket.
e.g. 1859 Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 185 Stalls, laden with pretty gimcracks, wax flowers and Berlin and
crochet work, prints, and polkas, and women's ware of all sorts.
492. pospolite
[Polish posspolite adj. neuter, “general, universal”, as n. = pospolite ruszenie general levy.]
The Polish militia, consisting of the nobility and gentry summoned to serve for a limited time.
e.g. 1822 Edin. Rev. XXXVII. 493 They continued to regard the Pospolite as the impenetrable bulwark of
the Commonwealth.
8.1.8 Ukrainian
511. calash n.
[ from French calčche, from German Kalesche, from Czech kolesa wheels] [a. F. calčche, from
Slavonic: Boh. kolésa, Pol. kolaska, dim. of kolasa “wheel-carriage”, f. kolo wheel: cf. Russ. kolaska
calash, kolesó wheel. In Eng., after many eccentricities, the word settled down as calash; but the Fr.
form calčche is frequent in modern writers in reference to the Continent or Canada.]
1. A kind of light carriage with low wheels, having a removable folding hood or top. In Canada, a two-
wheeled, one-seated vehicle, usually without a cover, with a seat for the driver on the splashboard.
Form caleche, etc.
e.g. 1866 Thoreau Yankee in Can. i. 10 The Canadians were riding about in caleches.
Form calash.
e.g. 1849 Sir R. Wilson Life (1862) I. iii. 129 Sleeping in the Calash.
2. The folding hood of such a carriage; also, the hood of a bathing machine, perambulator, etc.
e.g. 1856 A. Smith Mr. Ledbury I. xv. 117 The calash of a bathing-machine.
3. A woman's hood made of silk, supported with whalebone or cane hoops, and projecting beyond the face.
Formerly in common use.
e.g. 1867 Mrs. Gaskell Cranford (1873) 52 Three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door. A
calash is a covering worn over caps not unlike the heads fastened on old-fashioned gigs.
4. attrib., as in calash-driver, -head, -top.
1822 Edin. Rev. XXXVII. 255/4 His sketch of the calash-driver.
1824 Scott St. Ronan's (1832) 233 [The vehicle] had a calash head.
514. heyduck Forms: heyduque, -duke, -duck, heyduc, heiduc, -duck, haiduk, hayduk.
[a. Boh., Pol., Serv., Roman. hajduk, Magyar hajdú pl. hajdúk, in Bulg. hajdutin, mod.Gr. chaidoutes,
Turkish haidud robber, brigand.]
A term app. meaning originally “robber, marauder, brigand” (a sense still retained in Serbia and adjacent
countries), which in Hungary became the name of a special body of foot-soldiers (to whom the rank of
nobility and a territory were given in 1605), and in Poland of the liveried personal followers or attendants of
the nobles.
e.g. 1889 Athenćum 15 June 768/1 One of that extinct species of servants, the heyducs, holds the horse of
the fat monarch.
515. hospodar
[a. Romanian hospodár, of Slavonic origin: possibly from Little Russ. hospodár = Russ. gospodár (in
South Russia “master of a house”), deriv. of gospód- lord. Another Russian form of the word is
gosudár- sovereign, king, lord, sir.]
A word meaning “lord”, formerly borne as a title of dignity by the governors appointed by the Ottoman
Porte for the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.
e.g. 1886 Dowden Shelley II. ix. 362 His father, for a time hospodar of Wallachia, had retired into private
life.
Hence
hospodariat, -iate (erron. -iot, hospodorate), the office of a hospodar, the territory governed by a hospodar.
e.g. 1833 Fraser's Mag. VII. 196 The hospodariats were sure to become dependencies of Muscovy.
521. sable n.1 Forms: sabylle, sabulle, sabill, sabel, sabil(le, sabell, sable, cebal.
[a. OF. sable, saible sable fur, also quasi-adj. in martre sable (“sable marten”) as the name of the
animal and its fur, med.L. sabelum, sabellum sable fur, Icel. safal, safali sable (the animal), sable-fur,
Du. sabel sable-fur. The OF. word was prob. adopted from Slavonic: cf. Russian sobol, Polish, Czech
sobol (whence G. zobel, Da., Sw. sobel), Lith. sabalas, Hung. czoboly, the sable. See also zibeline,
which represents a Romanic derivative from the same Slavonic word.
The rare 17th c. form cebal is of obscure origin; it may possibly be a shortening of one of the Rom.
forms cited s.v. zibeline.]
1. a. A small carnivorous quadruped, Mustela zibellina, nearly allied to the martens, and native of the arctic
and sub-arctic regions of Europe and Asia. Also Russian, Siberian sable. In ME. the animal and its fur are
called also martrix sable, martryn sable, after OF. martre sable.
The American sable, Mustela Americana, native of the arctic and sub-arctic regions of North America, is
now regarded as a geographical variety of the Old World species. The red or Tatar sable is the Siberian
mink, Putorius sibiricus.
e.g. 1877 Coues Fur Anim. iii. 95 The Sable is principally trapped during the colder months.
b. Painting. A brush made of the sable's hair.
1973 F. Taubes Painter's Dict. 207 Sables are standard painting tools for all water-based mediums---
watercolor, acrylic, casein, gouache, etc.---which require large, thin passages of fluid color.
2. a. The skin or fur of the sable.
e.g. 1893 F. F. Moore Gray Eye or So III. 211 Mrs. Mowbray's set of sables had cost seven hundred guineas.
b. Short for sable coat.
e.g. 1977 J. Crosby Company of Friends xvi. 105 She eyed the sable some more. In a few more years they
would be hanging that coat on the wall-like a painting.
3. A superior quality of Russian iron, so called from being originally stamped with a sable.
e.g. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 462 Those [files] made from the Russian iron, known by the name of old sable,
called from its mark ccnd, are excellent.
4. attrib. and Comb.
a. simple attrib., as sable-skin; (made of the hairs of the sable) sable-brush, -pencil; (used for taking the
sable) sable-trap; (made of the fur of sable) sable-coat, (hence -coated adj.), muff, tippet; sable-trimmed adj.
Also objective, as sable-hunter.
1784 J. Belknap in B. Papers (1877) II. 188 We saw abundance of *sable-traps, and one bear-trap.
1922 Joyce Ulysses 457 A *sabletrimmed brick quilted dolman.
b. sable-mouse
e.g. 1700 W. King Transactioneer 81 Sable-Mice are so fierce and angry that if a stick be held out at them,
they will bite it.
530. voivode Forms: voy-, voiuoda, voivoda. uoiuod, voyvode, voivode. woivode, -wode, woywod.
[ad. Bulg. and Serb. vojvoda, Czech. vojevoda, Pol. wojewoda, Russ. voevoda, whence also Rom.
voevoda, -vod, mod.L. voivoda.]
e.g. 1884 W. Carr Montenegro 22 By repeated efforts the voivode maintains with difficulty a position on the
coast.
1868 Daily Tel. 1 Sept., To be prince of its park, lord of its lake, ruler of its river, and woiwode of its woods.
attrib.
1888 E. Gerald Land beyond Forest xxxiii. II. 84 Only such Tziganes are supposed to be eligible as are
descended from a Woywod family.
voivodeship
531. zibeline n.
[ from French, from Old Italian zibellino, ultimately of Slavonic origin; ]
1. a sable or the fur of this animal.
2. a thick cloth made of wool or other animal hair, having a long nap and a dull sheen. adj.
3. of, relating to, or resembling a sable
e.g. 1844 Hugh Murray Trav. Marco Polo i. 23. 133 The inside is lined with skins of ermine and zibelline.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1
2. LOANWORDS FROM SLAVIC LANGUAGES: WHY, WHEN,
AND HOW ?............................................................................................................3
2.1 THE 20TH CENTURY..............................................................................................5
2.2 THE PERIOD BEFORE THE 20TH CENTURY.....................................................8
2.3 SUMMARY..............................................................................................................9
3. CORPUS ANALYSIS..........................................................................................10
3.1 A CONCISE OVERVIEW OF SLAVIC (SLAVONIC2) LANGUAGES, AND
THEIR APPEARANCE IN THE CORPUS...........................................................10
3.1.1 The South Slavonic branch...............................................................................11
3.1.1.1 Eastern subgroup..........................................................................................11
3.1.1.2 Western subgroup..........................................................................................11
3.1.2 The West Slavonic branch.................................................................................12
3.1.3 The East Slavonic branch..................................................................................13
3.1.4 The languages in the corpus..............................................................................14
3.2 ANALYSIS OF THE CORPUS ACCORDING TO THE DIVISION
TRANSLATIONS................................................................................................15
3.2.1 Frequency of occurrence...................................................................................16
3.2.2 Summary...........................................................................................................19
3.4 ANALYSIS OF THE CORPUS ACCORDING TO MURRAY’S DIVISION OF
LOANWORDS INTO CASUAL, ALIEN, DENIZEN AND NATURAL.............20
3.3.1 Slavic casuals..................................................................................................21
3.3.2 Slavic aliens.....................................................................................................23
3.3.3 Slavic denizens................................................................................................29
3.3.4 Summary.........................................................................................................34
8.1.4 Bulgarian.........................................................................................................138
8.1.5 Croatian, Serbian, Croato – Serbian, Serbo – Croatian................................139
8.1.6 Polish...............................................................................................................145
8.1.7 Slovak..............................................................................................................152
8.1.8
Ukrainian.........................................................................................................152
8.1.9 Slavic, Slavonic................................................................................................152