“Don’t have 100 rubles, but have 100 friends,” says popular wisdom. And indeed, friends are our real wealth. Surely you also have a friend with whom you can go through thick and thin, who is ready to share joys and sorrows with you, with whom you just want to be close. These are the ones they say “bosom friend”. And no matter how long you have known each other - whether you grew up in the same yard or met at your last job, true friendship, although tested by time, is still measured by sincerity.
The word “bosomboy,” although ancient, is still widely used today, and it refers to both a friend and a girlfriend. It can often be heard both in everyday life and on TV screens, in songs and in movies. Vladimir Vysotsky wrote a poem about Vitka Korablev’s bosom friend, Indian director Vinod Mehra made a film of the same name, Vladimir Savich dedicated a story to such friends.
Faithful, devoted bosom friends are worth their weight in gold. But can every comrade be called that? And are there really bosom friends, because, as you know, many people question their very existence?
To answer these questions, it is necessary to decide on the terminology, or more precisely, the etymology of the phraseological unit “bosom friend”.
What secrets does the explanatory dictionary reveal?
The word “bosom” is medieval and carries a deep meaning. In the old days, it was believed that the human soul was located in the depression in the neck (just above the collarbone, right under the Adam’s apple). It is not for nothing that the word “bosom” meant “to kill by strangulation,” or “to take by the soul.” And bosoms were comrades who were close in spirit and who, hand in hand, were ready to walk together to the grave. It was about them that they said “one soul for two.”
What about bosom friends? An interesting observation is that the Adam’s apple in women is not as pronounced as in men, which means that the cavity under the Adam’s apple appears smaller. Maybe this is why the judgment about the superficiality of female friendship arose? It is worth noting that this is nothing more than a guess. But who knows, maybe tomorrow linguists will be able to substantiate or refute this point of view.
However, there is an alternative authoritative opinion about the origin of the famous phraseological unit. There is a version that the word “bosom” comes from the Old Russian “kochedyk” (in common parlance “Adam’s apple”). This was the name of a special awl for weaving bast shoes. Therefore, a bosom friend is a comrade who walked “in the same bast shoes.” They were also said to be “connected by one thread.”
A fly in the ointment of bosom friendship...
It happens that the phrase “bosom friend” has a negative connotation. Some people call those who like to drink together that way. And for good reason. It turns out that in the Tatar language the word “Adam’s apple” was used to refer to the process of drinking alcoholic beverages. It is quite possible that it was the Tatars, who passed through Russian lands in the 12th-14th centuries, who introduced this phraseological unit into our speech, which became synonymous with the domestic “drinking buddy”.
But it is worth noting that no matter in what sense this phrase is used, no matter what connotation it has, in any case we are talking about mutual friendship.
Take care and appreciate your friends and girlfriends, reliable, loyal, proven over the years, respect their opinions and do not refuse them help if you can afford it. The emotional support that you are ready to provide to each other is of considerable importance. It’s not without reason that people say: life is hard without a friend.
It's nice when you get a chance to destroy this or that myth. There is a popular belief that a bosom friend is someone with whom you can have a good drink and talk about life. Is it so? Let's find out.
A scattering of options
Perhaps this is a rare case when the origin of an expression gives rise to so many different versions. Let's list them to make it easier for the reader to understand:
- Drinking buddy. This is the most popular version, and most people are still sure that this is the case. What is there to hide, our people love to drink, and the one with whom it is best to do this is worth its weight in gold.
- Lapti. The Adam's apple was also the name for the tool used to make bast shoes. In other words, two people have one Adam's apple: they are from the same family.
- In Rus', great importance was attached to the Adam's apple because, according to beliefs, it protected the throat. And the throat, in modern language, is multifunctional: it is used to speak, eat, and drink. Therefore, a bosom friend is someone with whom you can share all this, that is, eat, drink and talk. And again, this version refers us to the theme of the feast.
But thanks to the dictionary, there is another possibility.
Most likely version
Whatever one may say, I would not like to believe that everything is closed and locked on the topic of vodka. Here you need to analyze the vernacular, where “kady” is equal to “when”. Thus, an “old friend” comes out. This is precisely the meaning of the phrase “bosom friend.” True, the most common version of the origin of the expression is still the one that is more alive among the people. In other words, only that friend with whom he has drunk many buckets of alcohol can be considered a bosom. Of course, we don’t want to believe in the truth of such an interpretation, but suddenly it was so. In any case, since we are talking about extreme antiquity, it is up to the reader to decide which side to join.
There are so few true friends
Be that as it may, no matter on what basis such a person appears, bosom friends are trusted unquestionably and unconditionally. And this is another argument, albeit not a rational one, in favor of the “sober” origin of the expression. A drinking buddy, when people have already left a certain state of consciousness, can hardly be trusted with anything. Especially if you practice in this matter often.
You will have very few friends in life who have gone through fire, water and copper pipes with a person. Maybe no more than three, and that's at best. Usually there are one or two of these.
After we have revealed all the possible origins of a phraseological unit, it’s time to answer the main question: “What does bosom friend mean?” This is a spiritually close person. My friendship with him goes back years or decades. But mental kinship here is the primary distinguishing feature.
Intimate, long-standing, closest, heartfelt, sincere, close Dictionary of Russian synonyms. bosom adj. close sincere very good (about a friend)) Dictionary of Russian synonyms. Context 5.0 Informatics… Synonym dictionary
- [sh], bosom, bosom. Only in the expression: bosom friend or friend (colloquial fam.) close, sincere. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
bosom- bosom friend bosom buddy... Dictionary of Russian Idioms
- (see the word Adam's apple). Close, sincere. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
bosom- The expression pour over your Adam's apple means to drink alcohol, to get drunk; from this expression the adjective bosom friend was formed, which in combination bosom friend initially meant a friend at a feast, a friend at a drink, and only later acquired ... Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Krylov
bosom- Tatar – kadyk (hard, protruding). Most likely, the word came from the noun “Adam’s apple” (from the phrase “pour over the Adam’s apple”), because The original meaning of the word is “drinking buddy.” The word came into the Russian language from Tatar in the XIV–XVI... ... Semenov Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language
bosom- where can you find a bosom friend? Yes, anywhere, you just need to be able to be friends. But let’s try to look at the question through the eyes of our ancestors: from their point of view, it is best to look for a bosom friend in a tavern. Because in the original sense, a sidekick... ... Entertaining etymological dictionary
BOSNOM.- Own R. Formed by suffixing the prepositional case form for the Adam's apple on the basis of the phrase pour for the Adam's apple “get drunk on vodka.” Bosom friend, buddy, originally “drinking buddy”; meaning “sincere, sincere” is secondary... Sitnikov's etymological dictionary
Eg. h. Friend. Usually associated with the Adam's apple (cf. sincere); see Groth, Phil. Once. 2, 430; Convert I, 241… Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Vasmer
Adj. decomposition Close, sincere (about a friend, buddy, about friendly, friendly relations). Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by Efremova
Books
- Falling in love with your best friend (audiobook MP3), Galina Kulikova. “Love between childhood friends is like an exhausted horse laden with old memories...” says Victor. His longtime friend Tatyana, and now almost his wife, is sure of the opposite: “Than... audiobook
- Moby Dick, or the White Whale (abbreviated), Herman Melville. In 1851, when the American writer, sailor and traveler Herman Melville first published his novel, his contemporaries did not understand or appreciate it. Only in the 20s of the twentieth century did historians...
In our speech, without noticing it, we use a lot of phraseological units and phrases, the history of which we do not know and, moreover, do not want to know. For example, most citizens do not have the slightest idea about the origin of the idiom “bosom friend”. to us from the past and in our time means a friend, a close or related person. Such “bosom friends” are found in kindergarten and maintain relationships throughout life.
What was originally meant by the idiom “bosom friend”?
How was the word “bosom” interpreted before?Researchers talk about several options for the original meaning of this phrase.
First option.
In ancient Rus', the word “bosom” meant “spiritually close, sincere.” The ancient Slavs believed that the human soul was located in a small cavity behind the Adam's apple, between the collarbones.
Because of this belief, several phraseological units arose; the murder of a person was denoted by the phrase “take by the soul,” “strangle” and “bosom.”
A “bosom friend” is a true old friend for life with whom you communicate until your death. One soul for two bodies.
Second option.
If you look at Dahl's dictionary, you will find in it the meaning of the word "bosom". It means daring, sincere, unchanging. And the ancient verb “bosom”, according to Dahl, means to kill, cut the Adam’s apple. Also in the dictionary there is a verb “to bosom” - to die, to cut oneself.
Today's linguists admit that Dahl was not entirely able to accurately determine the meaning of some phraseological units, trying to unite them only by their external similarity.
Third option.
In the same Dahl dictionary there is a word that we do not know at all - “kochedyk”. True, in colloquial speech it was pronounced like “Adam’s apple.” This word meant a special awl that was used for weaving bast shoes.
Therefore, the phraseological unit “bosom friend” can mean a close or related person whose bast shoes are made using the same awl. It can also mean that these people are connected by the same thread.
Fourth option.
There is a book called "Dictionary of Russian Phraseology". The word "Adam's apple" was in the Tatar language 14-16 centuries and was borrowed for Russian speech. True, this word was customary to designate only objects. The idiom “pour over the Adam’s apple” or “drink” from this word the meaning “drinking buddy” comes from.
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