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Abstract: The relevance and success of this Dictionary is demonstrated by its numerous reprints. In many ways, this success is ensured by the fundamental linguoculturological information accumulated in the Dictionary. It is such information that Biblical winged words and expressions refer to. The Dictionary compilers comprehensively characterize biblical expressions of different structure and semantics, suggest an exact indication of the scripture source for many of them, and provide historical and etymological comments and stylistic notes. Taking into account the post-revolutionary specificity of the period when the Dictionary was compiled, and the atheistic ideology of the Soviet society, the authors of the Dictionary had to employ various methods of indirect referencing to the biblical source of some words or phrases, as well as offer the readers contexts, authored by the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Thanks to such an integrated approach, the biblical vocabulary of the Dictionary turned out to be quite complete and meaningful. The article suggests a classification of biblicisms according to the purely linguistic principle: 1. Words denoting religious concepts (apokalipsis – apocalypse, evangelie – gospel, psaltyr' – psalter, bezbozhnik – atheist, etc.); 2. Winged words created on the basis of biblical motifs and ideas (ared – Jared, kain – Cain, kham – Ham, bedlam – bedlam, etc.); 3. Phrases denoting religious concepts (taynaya vecherya – Last Supper, geena ognennaya – Gehenna, neopalimaya kupina – burning bush, etc.); 4. Phraseologisms-winged expressions formed on the basis of biblical stories and quotations (Valaamova oslitsa – Balaam’s donkey, mafusailov vek – Methuselah’s age, t'ma egipetskaya – Egyptian darkness, etc.); 5. Biblicisms that have become proverbs (Kesarevo kesaryu, a Bozhie Bogu - Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's; Zapretnyy plod sladok – Forbidden fruit is the sweetest; Oko za oko, zub za zub – Tit for tat, etc.). Each of these groups of vocabulary and phraseology is commented on, demonstrating the lexicographic skill of the authors of the “Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language” edited by D. N. Ushakov.

About the author(s) :

Valery M. Mokienko

Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0264-0576

 

Acknowledgments: The study is supported by the RSF grant (2023-2025) “The Biblical Heritage of the East Slavic Languages in Linguistic, Cultural and Lexicographic Interpretation”, implemented at St. Petersburg State University).

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 02.10.2023; date of publication: 30.12.2023

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