The History of the Words Subtil'nyj, Delikatnyj, Politichnyj, Diplomatichnyj, Taktichnyj as Expressions of the Concepts of “Subtlety” and “Politeness”

The article is devoted to the concepts of “subtlety” and “politeness” based on the history of the assimilation of adjectives borrowed from Western European languages by the Russian language. In addition to the semantic development of the adjectives tonkij and vezhlivyj, these concepts have been saturated with borrowed synonyms since the 18th century. Subtel'nyj was borrowed from Polish in the mid-16th century, and in the 18th — early 19th centuries, the variant subtilnyj was established according to the Latin model. At the beginning of the 18th century, the adjective delikatnyj was also borrowed from Polish, which in the 19th century replaced the adjectives subtil'nyj and politichnyj in the ethical sphere — another Polonism known since the end of the 17th century. The connection of the latter with vezhlivyj weakens. Diplomatichnyj was borrowed from French at the end of the 19th century immediately in a qualitative sense.

In the 1870s, the adjective takt-ichn-yj with the suffix -ichn-, formed directly from the noun takt, emerged in the Russian language. There is no etymological connection with takticheskij. Following the French model, the adjective tonkij expands its compatibility from the second half of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century in the following order: vkus, obonjanie, um, rassuzhdenie, ulybka, chut'e, namek, cenitel', zapah, rabota, vopros, mehanizm, obhozhdenie. A statistical and chronological table of compatibility of all the listed adjectives with each other in one row of homogeneous epithets is given. The most frequent combinations are: tonkij i delikatnyj, tonkij i vezhlivyj, vezhlivyj i delikatnyj, vezhlivyj i taktichnyj, taktichnyj i delikatnyj, tonkij i taktichnyj. The newest borrowings are galantnyj, korrektnyj, kurtuaznyj and politkorrektnyj. The concept of “subtlety” shows the improvement of all five senses, both concepts enhance the semantic feature of subtlety of mind –– the “sixth” sense, the ability to distinguish and perceive nuances and details (“trifles”) of objects and their various properties.