Let's talk today about a not-too-fertile topic - about violence. No, everything will, of course, be peaceful, no terrible scenes or harrowing details. And you have to talk about guns. In other words, we consider and analyze the noun “skirmish”, and this will be surprising.
Origin
The reader can rightly ask: “But what have the pistols to do with it, because it is a matter of clarifying the relationship in words?” Yes, that's right when it comes to today. But it was not always so. Let's open the etymological dictionary.
In fact, the history of the word tells us, skirmishing is a shootout. And as the source indicates, a similar meaning has been preserved, but it is now very rarely used. It is worth noting that, probably, few people know about him at all.
The validity of the data is confirmed by the verb “shoot”, that is, “shoot”, whose meaning remains the same as it was. True, now they sometimes say that about blows in game sports, but this is nothing more than a metaphor, because the original meaning sends us all the same to shooting.
Value
Of course, even those who have never opened an explanatory dictionary, thanks to linguistic practice, understand the meaning of the word “skirmish” - this is a hassle.
There is a very interesting detail uniting two words that in our time have lost their “warlike” character. Notice that both of them were somehow connected with the real battle. The skirmish is a shoot-out, and earlier there was an expression that is now used in heroic literature styled as antique - “battlefield”, that is, relationships were clarified not by words, but by swords, and the victims were quite serious.
After these brief remarks, we can reveal the modern meaning of the object of study:
- Same as skirmish (obsolete).
- Same as hassle (colloquial).
You see, the difficulty is that the object of research is defined through other concepts. But we are not discouraged, we will give their meanings by a list:
- Simultaneous shooting against each other.
- Quarrel, accompanied by abuse.
We think, and without repetition, it is clear what meaning refers to which concept. It is also worth adding that firefighting in game sports is called rapid and met with each other attacks, which necessarily end with shots on goal.
Synonyms
In the finale, something that will expand the reader’s vocabulary when he needs to replace the object of study. The Russian language is strong in its synonymy, so this situation does not seem fantastic. There will be few replacements. Here they are:
- dispute;
- quarrel;
- swearing;
- collision
- contention;
- bickering;
- pick.
Yes, you have to remember this: if a skirmish goes hand to hand, then it makes a quantum leap, that is, a fight cannot be called a skirmish.