The not-so-harmonious verb “to spread rot” has relatively recently become firmly established. How did he appear in Russian? What are its origins?
Only slang?
In modern dictionaries, this word has not yet been reflected. This verb of interpretation was awarded only in books of modern slang. In one dictionary, the verb “rot” means scolding, insulting, offending, taunting, oppressing, in the other, whining, bothering, crying, annoying, harassing, molesting, annoying. The related word «rot’ is found in Dahl’s dictionary, which means it is obscured, hushed up, tortured, and marked as dialect. It is found in the dictionary of Russian dialects.
Thus, judging by the state of the explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, the word "spread rot" has a limited use: either slang, or a dialect. It should be noted that in the dictionaries of the Ukrainian language, the word "spread rot" refers to the literary language and means to oppress.
From jargon to general use
Recently, this verb has gone beyond the restrictive framework and began to gain a foothold in the literary language. He has already taken up positions in the spelling dictionary of V.V. Lopatin. Consistency requires inclusion in explanatory dictionaries. What value? If in modern reality, according to certain gloomy personalities, all the spread rot, spread rot and spread rot, the meaning suggests itself: to humiliate, suppress, oppress.
Examples of use:
- What is inherent in women’s nature to spread rot among men is an axiom.
- If your woman begins to spread rot, and you are silent at the same time and leave the conversation, you too, it turns out, a coward ?!
- A. Razbash: “When Jews are spread rot or spread rot, it’s also no one to blame for this” (program “Rush Hour”, 1996)
If you turn to etymology
As noted above, in the Ukrainian language the verb “rot” is a common vocabulary. This fact pushes to turn to the history of the word. Etymology testifies to the antiquity of its roots. The word goes back to the pre-Slavic gnobiti, meaning crush. From the pre-Slavic to the even more ancient Indo-European genabh / gonabh (crush). So, from the Proto-Slavic language, the word remained in Ukrainian, there is an analogue in Polish (gnebic). In the Great Russian language, this verb was preserved in the dialects of the Ryazan province, where “spread rot” means tormenting, burdening with something. Despite the nuances of the interpretation of this word, the meaning of pressure is always preserved.
So, we can say that the verb "spread rot" is a native Russian word. And his way from the vocabulary of limited use to the common, perhaps, is logical.