weight gain

[Alina Israeli]

It goes without saying that all the expressions of weight gain  
traditionally have a positive lexical connotation:

popolnet' — from polnyj (full, as opposed to empty)

popravit'sja — to get better

razdobret' — from dobryj 'kind'

tolstyj — can be the last name of a count, while xudoj — cannot. The  
last name of this root has a disparaging suffix -ak: Xudjakov,  
certainly nothing positive could come with that.

upitannyj — well fed

tuchnyj — the one who has a lot of fat

zhirnyj/zhir — comes from the word zhit', that is what you gain in  
(good) life.

Adjectives like nalitoj could also describe — positively, of course —  
an ample body.


On Jan 2, 2010, at 8:57 AM, Max Pyziur wrote:

> I don't know if the same occurs in Russian, but in Ukrainian weight- 
> gain is oftentimes described as an "improvement," of sorts;  
> sometimes literally, sometimes ironically.
>
> e.g. Він поправився/Вона поправилася



Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------