By studying the meaning of words in Russian, you can better understand the logic of building literary texts and significantly enrich your vocabulary. For example, if you ask people what escape is, opinions are divided. Someone will decide that this is about flight, others will start talking about plants, and all will be right. Out of context, it is impossible to determine which of the meanings.
Homonyms in Russian: escape or escape?
If different objects, phenomena or actions are called the same word, that is, a combination of letters, these are homonyms. The concept was introduced by Aristotle, who conducted a linguistic analysis and systematized the signs of homonym. Consequently, not only the Russian language can boast of the presence of such words, this phenomenon is noted in almost all known languages of the world. The semantics of homonyms may coincide on the most unexpected grounds. Analyzing what an escape is, you can find some common signs, even if at first glance they do not exist - the plant seems to arrange an escape from the ground, throwing a new sprout. On such very distant semantic parallels, many homonyms are built, for example, a braid as an instrument, as a female hairstyle and sandbank, it is something long, narrow and elongated.
Jailbreak or captivity
One of the main meanings is flight, and against the will of those who placed the fugitive in a place of imprisonment. In most cases, the lawfulness of deprivation of liberty is not considered, although in criminal law the unauthorized abandonment of the protected territory is considered an offense if we are talking about a person deprived of liberty by a court decision. What is escape in the broad sense of the word for this particular semantics? Any place of deprivation or a significant restriction on the freedom of movement of citizens is controlled by persons vested with relevant powers. Even if these powers are not recognized as prisoners, their actions are still qualified as escape.
Freedom is partially deprived of persons performing military service, and completely imprisoned in correctional institutions, as well as prisoners captured as a result of hostilities or with a criminal purpose. And if jailbreak is a crime, then the so-called AWOL in the army has less severe consequences for violators. At the same time, no one can condemn the flight of captives, this is the natural desire of a person to illegally seized freedom.
The emotional appeal of escape in art plots
In the world there are a huge number of books, films and musical compositions dedicated to fugitives of all stripes. After all, what is escape, if not an active action with the goal of gaining a lost will? This causes an emotional response from viewers and readers, they empathize, mentally support freedom fighters, especially if they are positive characters. Sometimes even a negative hero, cleverly gaining freedom for himself, causes sympathy, despite all his bad qualities. This topic has been used for centuries and is unlikely to lose relevance. All of us, to one degree or another, feel the limitations of our will, so we will empathize and enthusiastically monitor adventures and plot twists.
Escape as a psychological technique
There are terms such as “escape from reality” or “escape from responsibility”. Moving away from any hurtful realities or limitations, a person makes a psychological escape, sometimes inventing many reasons, excuses and techniques that allow breaking free.
In this case, the meaning of the word “escape” is rather figurative, because physically a person doesn’t really disappear anywhere, but he shuts himself off from the stimulus by any means, sometimes causing indignation of those around him. Moreover, this action can be both conscious and prepared, and unconscious when a person does not suspect that his psyche is taking protective measures to maintain balance.
The extreme manifestation of an escape from reality is amnesia, short-term or absolute. If the psyche regards certain events as excessively traumatic, it can “escape”, that is, turn off any memory of the incident.
Plant shoot
Another semantic content of this homonym is no less widely used. This is the young part of the plant, on which there is a growth bud and the possibility of the development of lateral sprouts. What does “escape” mean in botany? This sprout can be located anywhere, for example, branches from the main branch are also called shoots, like young shoots that have broken out from the root of the parent plant.
By shoots you can easily propagate many fruit bushes and trees, ornamental plants. This method of propagation can turn one cherry tree into a whole garden if the sprouts that have broken out from the roots are not cut in time. In this case, shoots are even called individual young plants, barely hatching from a seed in the ground. Such a germ is called a first-order shoot, but the side branches from the central one are numbered in order. So shoots of the second, third, fourth order and so on appear. Depending on the type of plant, there can be quite a few lateral sprouts.
Figurative meaning of the word
If the shoot is a germ, then you can easily understand why this word is so often used in a figurative sense. In figurative speech, what phenomena alone do not acquire shoots - evil, mercy, and even economics. The imagination of people is limitless, authors do not go into a pocket for a vague comparison or metaphor, so you can meet this word in a figurative sense in almost any field, even if it is so inappropriate.
Shoots of evil - this phrase has become the most hackneyed in literature. Emotionally, it is intended to cause the reader or viewer a sense of anxiety: there is no evil yet, but it already shows signs, the first sprouts have already broken through. In fiction with the help of such phrases the general tone of the narrative is formed, but this phenomenon breaks even into journalism. Journalists sometimes resort to figurative comparisons - metaphors - trying to get emotional involvement from readers. For example, charitable endeavors will be called “the first shoots of mercy”, no one will even have an analogy with escaping from prison - here the context, not even a hint of botany, implies the meaning “sprouts of mercy”.