The Russian language is rich in bright, juicy expressions, which are far from always clear to those for whom it is not native. Foreigners will have to explain for a long time how to catch a raven without hunting for birds, to tear like a goat goat without touching any pet. To the category of similar speech riddles can be attributed to the "staeros club".
Direct value
What is a steros
club ? Let's start with the first word in the phrase. Initially, the so-called big thick stick used for hunting animals or as a weapon during the battle. They were used by people in the era of the primitive communal system. Then, not a stick was called a club, but a specially crafted one: smoothly trimmed, refined from the edge taken by the palm, and thickened at the opposite end. The edge was usually rounded. Synonyms, now little-used: "oryasina", "dubye", "club", "drekol" (do not confuse with a dress code).
Is Staerosova?
Now about the second word in the phrase club steroosovaya. In the dictionary of Dahl and Ushakov, the following meaning is given: this is a tree that grows directly, evenly, without bends and distortions. In another way, “growing steadfast” - standing, not drowning, not creeping to the ground. This means that the Sterosov club was a special, even stick, a rather formidable weapon in the savage hands of the savage!
Greek version
We continue our study. After all, it is still far from over! The second interpretation of the term "Sturos club" is associated with the Greek language. He was an obligatory subject in theological seminaries. But they most often learned, more precisely, simply crammed this language, like Old Slavonic, without special understanding, mechanically. Often, just trying to adapt an alien morphological, derivational or phonetic model to the familiar Russian pattern. In Greek there is the word stauros - pile, pole, stake, stick. In combination, the cudgel steroos adjective in sound is clearly close to the Greek model. And if you take the literal meaning, it turns out "a club made of sticks, stake, etc.". As they say, a completely meaningful combination!
From direct to portable
And in terms of idiomatic accretions,
stable expressions, what does it mean, “steros club”? As you know, the figurative meaning of a word-subject is formed on the basis of certain
associative connections, analogies between it and other objects, somewhat close. In colloquial phraseology, the phrase “stauros club” means the following: a
stupid, stupid, incomprehensible person. It refers to the general genus, i.e. applies to both male and female people. Synonyms, as a rule, are stylistically reduced: blockhead, a fool, a dumbass, an ignoramus, a bastard, without a king in his head, etc. And even the saying: "There is strength - no mind." Why such an understanding of phraseology? Apparently, the stupidity of a person, his inability to understand something was compared with the hardness, “impenetrability” of a tree, especially hardwood. Remember, at Gogol the landowner Korobochka is called the "clubhead"! Those. again we are faced with a club. The stearing is explained as follows: just as a tree grows straight-straight, so a person perceives everything literally, thinks narrowly, cannot abstract, understand something that goes beyond his horizons. In a word, he thinks straightforwardly. Or, returning to the Greek-seminarian version, as applied to man, the “sturos club” is “wooden man”: impenetrable to which nothing can be explained. By the way, among the seminarians who studied many scholastic sciences, there were plenty of such instances! The antonyms of phraseologism will be words and stable combinations: clever, sensible, intelligible, quick-witted, mind-ward,
seven spans in the forehead.