ETYMOLOGICAL NOTES ON RUSSIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE SLANG: VZDR’UCHIT’

The article explores lexical items belonging to a subset of the 19th century Russian bureaucratic slang terms with the meaning ‘to scold, tell off, reprimand, subject to verbal punishment’, attested in literary sources, primarily in the works of Nikolai Leskov. The terms are shown to have originated from the slang of theological college students, of which borrowings liberally adapted to Russian word formational patterns were typical. Special attention is given to the verb dr’uchit’ ‘to (severely) beat physically or verbally’ and its variants; significant overlooks in existing lexicographic-etymological descriptions of the verb are pointed out; a new etymology for the verb is proposed, suggesting a borrowing from German drücken ‘to press; to oppress’.