Imagine a decent well-dressed man, even a handsome one, and suddenly he opens his mouth and covers some grandmother with a clean mat. What is your impression? The most vile. And what did the young man do when he did this? To do this, we answer another question, leveling - what is it?
Origin
By style, it may seem that the word has come into use from some science. And if you open an explanatory dictionary before etymological (as we did), there may be a false impression that it was so. But the etymological dictionary prioritizes correctly. And here is why, we will find out now.
Of course, this always raises the question of the source language. As always, two options are German and French. Of course, there are much more languages in the world, but experience shows that Russian with pleasure borrowed from either German or French. In both languages there is a noun “level” from which the verb is formed. We give original names, we will not indicate the language, because by writing it is clear which word comes from, so: nivellieren and niveler.
Level - what is it? The word itself originally meant "balancing" or "balancing."
Now let's see the modern version.
Value
One who observes for quite some time, or rather, learns a language, can say the following. The newly arrived words have an unenviable fate: first they enter our linguistic space in their original meaning (for example, you can see the word “aplomb”), and then a mutation occurs on Russian soil and the “foreign guest” becomes a monster, that is, the word becomes negative meaning. But it was a saying, and a fairy tale will be replaced by the meaning of the word “level” in the explanatory dictionary:
- Determine by means of special instruments the height of the points of the earth's surface relative to some selected point or above sea level.
- By leveling, smoothing, destroying the differences between something or someone.
Returning to the beginning, remember, we said that if you do not know the true story, you can think about the scientific origin of the object of study. That is, they used to determine the height of the points, and now the term is used as equalization and destruction of differences. But, as we know, history is both simpler and more complex at the same time.
Before moving on to synonyms, a few more notes that may seem obvious. If you answer the question, level - what is it, and use the first meaning of the word, then the phrase "special term" is enough. The second meaning does not have a "specialty", but it is rightfully included in the ranks of book vocabulary.
Synonyms
Someone does not like all this bookishness. Someone, perhaps, considers that it is necessary to be closer to the people. In other words, the question of leveling - what is it, no one is interested. Here the problem is the replacement of the object of study. So, here is the list:
- smooth out;
- level off;
- to balance;
- depersonalize;
- to destroy;
- bring down.
When the words are specific, then the fountain of analogues is not worth the wait. Synonyms for “leveling out” were no exception. But, we think, the general meaning is clear.
suggestions
The time of the finale and illustrations to the meaning of the word being analyzed today. The technical term in this case, we leave aside. The focus is only on the meaning used by most:
- The team played well and created even a few moments thanks to which she could score, but instead missed, which leveled her advantage.
- One is beautiful, but there’s nothing to talk about with her, the other knows what structuralism and even post-structuralism are, but her appearance is not impressive, how to choose? It seems that the difference between them is leveled.
- At one job you can earn a lot, but there is no pleasure, at another - a sea of pleasure, but almost for free. Their differences can be leveled. I don’t know who how, but I choose pleasure. I am the only workaholic hedonist in the world.
As we see from the examples, it is almost impossible to distinguish the meaning of “destroy” from the meaning of “smooth out” when it comes to leveling. With this difficult dilemma, we leave the reader. It is worth considering whether there is a difference, or whether it is leveled.