Obsolete words are a special group of words which, due to various reasons, are not used in modern speech. They are divided into two categories - historicisms and archaisms. Both of these groups are similar to each other, but still have several significant differences.
History
These include words denoting special things, positions, phenomena that have ceased to exist in the modern world, but have taken place before. An example of such words is the boyar, governor, petitioner, estate. They do not have synonyms in the modern language, and you can only find out their meaning from the explanatory dictionary. Basically, such obsolete words refer to the description of everyday life, culture, economy, hierarchy, military and political relations of ancient years.
So, for example, petition is: 1) a bow with the forehead touching the ground; or 2) a written request. The stolnik is a courtier who is one degree lower than the boyar, who usually served at the boyar or royal table.
Most obsolete historicism words are found among names related to military subjects, as well as related to household items and clothing: chain mail, visor, redoubt, peep, endova, prosak, armyak, sevalka, camisole.
Here are some examples of sentences containing outdated words. “The petitioners came to the tsar and complained about the governor, and said that they took their estates from them, and then they handed out; nobles, stolniks and boyar children also complained that the voivode took their palace villages. , asked for bread and money wages. "
Currently, one of the many groups of historicisms are those that arose during the formation of the USSR: food detachment, Budyonnovtsy, educational program, comedian, NEP, deprived, NEPman, Makhnovist, surplus appraisal.
Archaisms
The obsolete words of the Russian language are distinguished into yet another large group - archaisms. They, in fact, are a subgroup of historicisms - they also include words that are obsolete. But their main difference is that they can be replaced by synonyms, which are ordinary and currently used words. Here are examples of archaisms: Lanites, right hand, loins, verses, tuga, ramen. Accordingly, their modern counterparts are cheeks, right hand, lower back, poems, sadness, shoulders.
There are several basic differences between archaism and its synonym. They may differ:
a) lexical meaning (belly - life, guest - merchant);
b) grammar design (at the ball - at the ball, perform - execute);
c) morphemic composition (fisherman - fisherman, friendship - friendship);
In order to correctly use archaism in a sentence and avoid confusion, use the explanatory dictionary or the dictionary of obsolete words.
And here are examples of proposals containing archaisms: "There were deceitful people, boyars, noble people, clerks in Moscow, whom Bolotnikov threatened to convert to commoners or kill, and put nameless people in their place; industrialists and wealthy merchants, courtyards, and money also lived there. whose shops - everything was surrendered to the poor. "
In this passage, archaisms are such words: commoner, yard (in the meaning of the economy), shop (trading enterprise), nameless. It is easy to see that historicisms are present here: the deceased, the boyar.
Outdated words perfectly convey the characteristic historicity, make the literary text colorful and vibrant. But for correct and appropriate use it is always necessary to consult the explanatory dictionary so that flowery phrases do not turn into nonsense in the end.