Category: "Russian language"
Words I'm looking up this morning
June 8th, 2010| ломбард | pawn shop; сдать в ломбард to pawn |
| opossum | опоссум |
| лиственница | larch tree. I'm from Arizona. I can't tell a tree from a hole in the ground. I can name five different types of cholla cactus, though. |
| камаз | They seem to use this word in Kazan for trucks instead of грузовик. Turns out is an abbreviation for Камский автомобильный завод. I'll have to double check whether the turn applies to all their production, or just trucks. |
| собор vs. храм | храм is temple or church, essentially equivalent to церковь. собор is cathedral. |
| полоскать | I've only heard this in the past in the sense of 'to gargle.' Here several times I've heard it in the sense of 'to rinse.' At the Shishkin museum there was also полосница, a water container used to rinse out your tea cup before fresh tea was poured. Also полоскаться passive version. |
| hangnail | заусенец, also заусеница. Also means a burr that has not been yet ground down on a piece of worked metal. |
| стиляга | Lingvo says: "fop, dandy, man in trendy clothes (esp in 1960s)". Probably there is a better translation for it. In some contexts maybe "clothes horse"? |
Plus I think our tour guide Sunday said something like «Ложка дёгтя лучше, чем бочка мёда» "A spoonful of tar is better than a barrel of honey." Should confirm this with someone.
I really should blog about the word выпечка baked goods.
