The article tells about what is chicken, what are the meanings of this word and some of its synonyms are given.
Tongue
In any language that is living (people speak it) and develops, over time, words appear that have several meanings at once. As a rule, they are all quite old, although there are exceptions. For example, the word “language” means spoken language, and an organ in a person’s mouth, and a certain elongated area or platform, and even a prisoner of war who can provide valuable information.
One of these polysemous words is “chicken”.
So what is chicken, what does it mean and what does it mean? This is what we will understand in this article.
Definition
The word "chicken" comes from the word "smoke" (that is, drown in a house, heat it, and then smoke is smoked in it). So still relatively recently, by historical standards, they called the homes of Russian Cossacks. However, this word was also distributed in the southern part of Ukraine. But first things first.
Initially, the word "chicken" was used to denote a special defense structure and the place where Russian Cossacks lived. True, Ukrainian Cossacks used it in a similar way. The first settlements of the Cossacks were built in floodplains (reeds and sedges overgrown by the river), their walls were often built from woven rods of reeds or vines, the roof was also of similar material, in the center of which there was a hole for smoke to escape from the hearth. But during the flood period, such dwellings were often flooded, and over time they began to be built on stilts.
This characteristic feature can be traced in the modern home of the Cossacks. Usually a Cossack chicken is made two-story, and the first floor is built either on stilts or stone.
Supplies and tools were usually stored on the ground floor, while they lived on the second floor. (Now we have a general idea of what a chicken is.) This floor also served as a refrigerator: it had no windows, but ventilation holes were cut out in the walls.
Ukrainian meaning
In the period from the XVI to the XVIII century, Ukrainian Cossacks called the military-administrative unit of the Zaporizhzhya Sich. Also, this term was used in units of the Black Sea Cossack army. And during the years of the Great Patriotic War, Ukrainian nationalists called their squads numbering several hundred soldiers.
The Cossacks also used this word to mean a village, in which there were approximately 100 houses.
Most likely, such names of the Cossack units of the time of the Zaporizhzhya Sich received because initially, in their first years, the Cossacks lived in long huts made of twigs, reeds and twigs, and in the Little Russian dialect this word means “hut”. So now we have expanded our understanding of what chicken is.
Over time, instead of flimsy huts, strong huts were built, and subsequently they adopted this name. Also, they were all named in memory of those places of which the first Zaporozhye Cossacks founded them . And each kuren had its own subsidiary farm, which provided the Cossacks attached to it with provisions. At the head of the kuren stood his ataman. He was elected exclusively at the Cossack Council, where everyone had the same right to vote.
Kuren: synonyms
The synonyms of this word are “hut”, “camp”, “settlement”, “fortification”. Also, the Pomors called it a small, very dilapidated hut and a strong snowstorm. And in some regions of Russia, this word was used to denote the space in the forest, where they were engaged in cutting down trees and burning them to turn into charcoal. True, in our time it is outdated and is no longer used. There is a word, by the way, in the Mongolian language, and denotes a nomadic settlement, which consists of many yurts.
Well, we figured out what a chicken is and what multiple meanings this word carries.