GRYMASY W HISTORII JĘZYKA POLSKIEGO

The article analyzes twenty-five lexical units meaning in old Polish ‘behavior expressing discontent, usually unjustified’. The material was collected based upon the formal structures of the gathered lexemes. It turns out that the oldest names for that behavior date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of these appellations were adopted from French. The aristocracy of that time and place in history had a huge influence not only upon fashion but also habits of the whole Europe. Similarly to the French names, the Polish words related to fuss-making concentrated around five semantic fields; 1.The breath of a fussy person, 2.Their body language, 3. A-logical behavior, 4.The electrolyte imbalance in the body, 5. Delusions. From among the collected lexical units mentioned above, only six have been preserved, i.e. grymasy, kaprysy, humory, wydziwiania, dąsy, chimery. All these lexemes have undergone lexicalization.