The more time passes, the more words the Russian language loses: they come out of everyday circulation. This is a historical dynamic that is unfair. We want to at least slightly slow down the iron tread of history and tell us today about the expression "thick forehead": the meaning and examples of its use.
Origin
Dictionaries agree that the expression was presented to us by A.S. Pushkin. He has such an entertaining "Tale of the priest and his worker Balda." And it begins like this: "Once upon a time there was a pop, oversized forehead." And here you can’t do without an explanation.
Before the appearance of mechanized factories and plants, people made flour in two ways: they grind grain in a mill and pounded in a mortar. Of course, different types of flour were used for these operations. It is worth suggesting that although the work at the mill is not easy, the crushing in the mortar had to be even harder. And these efforts are comparable to explaining something to a foolish, near and uneducated person. It also seems that the consonance of the noun “interpretation”, that is, “explanation”, and the verb “crush” played a role in the emergence of phraseology. And the noun “sense” from the verb “sense” differs by one letter. Although this is only an assumption, there is definitely some kind of linguistic connection here.
We inform for the impatient: yes, we are considering the expression "oversized forehead", its significance will soon become known.
Meaning
As the reader probably already understood from the previous section, they characterize a person who is stupid, uneducated, who hardly understands what they are told. Absorbing any thought from him is akin to hard work with oatmeal. Information must be chewed to the smallest detail, then it will be assimilated.
Such is not too complicated phraseologism "thick forehead", its meaning has been revealed by us.
Examples and synonyms
When it comes to tonality of expression, the opinions of dictionaries differ. Some say that this is rather rude (and Pushkin’s work confirms this: his pop is not the most pleasant person in every sense), and other sources say that, they say, this is a comic name, and it can not offend anyone. Who knows, jokes are different.
In any case, we will consciously lower the degree of rudeness and say: the idiots played by Andrei Myagkov in the films of E. Ryazanov are great for an example illustration. Both Novoseltsev (“Office Romance”) and Lukashin (“Irony of Fate”) do not differ in ingenuity, however, only in one thing: in the chemistry of feelings and the psychology of human relations. For the rest, both characters are quite smart and even erudite, especially Novoseltsev, who discovers knowledge of Pasternak's poetry. He also says the famous phrase: "It is better to die standing." She has a sequel, and it sounds completely like this: "It is better to die standing than to live on your knees." Who said it first is unknown, because it is attributed to too many. However, we were distracted. Our task: to consider a stable phrase "thick forehead", the importance of explaining it and selecting examples.
In principle, this could have ended, but suddenly the reader will come in handy replacing the expression with one word. And maybe it was them he was looking for in the article. We cannot deceive his expectations in any way. So, the phrase can be replaced by adjectives:
- Brainless.
- Stupid.
- Unintelligent.
- Uneducated.
- Nearby.
If the task is to explain the expression "thick forehead" (to reveal the meaning of phraseological units, in other words) and replace it with a noun, then the following definitions will help:
- Fool.
- Moron.
- Slow-witted.
- Nerd.
It seems that slow-witted is the most appropriate synonym, the rest are rude. But this is a matter of taste.