It is sad to realize this, but in the modern Russian language there are gradually fewer words of Slavic origin. They are superseded by borrowings from other languages. To stop the loss of Russian unique features, it is worth trying more often to use native words in your speech. Here are just a few of them so rarely used that people of the new millennium do not really know what meaning they have. Let's try to correct this annoying omission and consider the meaning of the word "boundary". And also find out the history of the appearance of this noun.
The direct meaning of the word "boundary"
Just a hundred years ago, most of the inhabitants of Tsarist Russia very actively used this term. And not just like that, because most of them earned their living by farming.
However, most of the land in those days was in the hands of the nobility, so the peasants got tiny plots. The products grown on them were barely enough to survive. Therefore, farmers literally appreciated and fought for every centimeter of their own land.
But, as often happens, among the peasants there were always cunning, trying to trick into joining at least some of the neighbor's possessions to their land plots. To prevent this from happening, a special border was drawn between the property of various farmers (usually it was a narrow strip of uncultivated land). It was called the "boundary."
A similar practice of land surveying was common among most Slavic agricultural peoples: among Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles and others.
The border of neighbors at almost all times has been the cause of numerous disputes, the reflection of which has been preserved in folk art.
For example, the well-known saying: “A good neighbor will not break the boundary”, clearly showed that one of the main causes of squabbles among our ancestors was land disputes.
By the way, about them in the nineteenth century. the famous Ukrainian writer I. Nechuy-Levitsky wrote the tragicomic novel “The Kaidashev Family”.
In this work, disputes about the border of possessions were no longer just with neighbors, but with siblings.
Meza is ... (figurative meaning of the term)
In addition to its direct meaning, the word in question has a figurative one.
According to him, the boundary is some kind of interface or the limit of something.
It is worth noting that in this interpretation this term is not often used in modern Russian. As a rule, this is done to stylize antique speech.
But in Ukrainian, the figurative use of the noun “boundary” is a fairly common norm. So, Ukrainians very often use the phrase “go beyond the boundaries”, which means “go beyond the boundaries / limits”. They also have the expression "reach the boundary" (reach the edge).
In the Russian language, the period of active use in the figurative meaning of the noun "inter" is the 19th century. In this century, this noun can be found in the writings of Herzen, Goncharov, Karamzin and the like.
Etymology of the term studied
Having dealt with the direct and figurative meaning, it is worth learning about the origin of the considered noun.
The roots of the term "Mezh" can be found even in the pre-Indo-European language. There was the word medhyo in it, meaning "middle." Subsequently, it is preserved in most modern European languages. For example, in English, the name of the era was formed from it - Medieval (Middle Ages) and the term middle (middle, middle).
A similar name with the meaning "average" also existed in Greek (μέσσος -) and Latin (medius).
At the stage of the emergence of the Pre-Slavic language, it used the term medja, which subsequently became “between” in Old Slavonic.
Having such an ancient “biography”, the word “Mezh” was successfully preserved in some Slavic languages. In addition to Russian and Ukrainian, it is in Belarusian (mezh), Czech (meze), Polish (miedza) and others.
Synonyms for the noun "inter"
Since in modern Russian the considered noun is used less often than a hundred years ago, this means that it is replaced with some other words. What are they like? Let's find out!
Often, when speaking of a boundary, terms are used between land plots.
- Frontier.
- Border.
- The brink.
In addition to modern ones, the word in question also has outdated substitute terms. The main of these synonyms for “boundary” is “joint” and “limit”.
Famous phraseological units with the studied word
Being the cause of frequent quarrels among the Slavs over the years, this noun quite often appeared in folk sayings and phraseological units. In addition to those mentioned in the first paragraph, there are others. The following are the most popular:
- Marry a boundary. Means: to marry a neighbor in the land plot. With this union, the land of the spouses united. In addition, the boundary itself joined them, that is, it became possible to process this piece as well.
- Spit between the eyes. This expression is especially familiar to fans of Gogol's work.
- Between the edges - quarrels and abuse.
- Mezha is a holy thing.