Attractively designed window display is often one of the main success factors in clothing, footwear, accessories and other consumer goods stores. It should make the buyer want to come in, consider, buy what they like. Marketers are turning window dressing into an art. They learn special techniques that will increase the demand and interest of the buyer in the product, thanks to its beautiful display. "Showcase" - what is this word and what are the features of its use in colloquial and written speech? More on that later.
Lexical meaning: "showcase"
In the explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, two main meanings of the word are given. Let's consider them, based on the original source. The New Dictionary of the Russian Language by T. F. Efremova gives the following descriptions.
1. A window in a store or similar establishment specially equipped to display or advertise goods for sale.
Examples:
- "Showcases are traditionally decorated with twoways: commodity or plot".
- "A well-designed shop window should evoke an association with something desirable and joyful for the future buyer."
2. A glassed-in box, cabinet, or stand containing exhibits, advertisements, or samples intended for public viewing.
Examples:
- "The museum pieces were neatly arranged in display cases and seemed to be alive."
- "There were several brochures available on the display case describing the specifications of the sample."
Syntactic and morphological features
Showcase is a feminine noun, inanimate, 1st declension. Root: -showcase-; ending: a. According to the classification of A. A. Zaliznyak, it belongs to the type of declension 1a.
Singular number:
| Name | showcase |
| R. | showcases |
| D. | showcase |
| V. | showcase |
| TV. | showcaseshowcase |
| Ex. | showcase |
Plural:
| Name | showcases |
| R. | windows |
| D. | showcases |
| V. | showcases |
| TV. | windows |
| Ex. | showcases |
Origin
Showcase is a word thatderived from the French vitrine. Vitre - "window glass", and further from it - vitrum - "glass". The first mention of the word can be found in the dictionaries of foreign words by M. Popov (1907), F. Pavlenkov (1907) and A. N. Chudinov (1910). After analyzing the release dates of the above-mentioned publications, we can conclude that the “showcase” is over a hundred years old. During this time, in everyday life, she "overgrown" goals with a number of characteristics and set phrases.
Synonyms
To a word, you can choose the following variants of words that are similar in meaning in certain contexts. They are fully or partially capable of conveying the main connotation. These include: window, stand, cabinet, drawer, signboard. The word “showcase”, which means, first of all, a window with goods on display, can also be correlated with the concept of “kiot” (this is a cabinet for icons), as well as with “menuboard” (a board with a written list of dishes on the menu of a catering establishment).
Examples:
- "A variety of accessories were fantatically arranged in the store window to perfectly match the New Year's outfit."
- "In the glass stand located at the main entrance to the office, you could see your reflection and fix your hair."
- "The box of goods sparkled like a Christmas tree, drawing attention and creating a festive mood."
Phraseological units and set phrases
In colloquial speech, there is an expression "to live as in a shop window." It means that a person has no secrets at all and allows otherswatch yourself in everything, not only in actions, but also in thoughts, because a shop window is glass, a symbol of transparency and openness.
She could be:
- lit, bright, sparkling, smart, catchy, burning;
- shop, museum, pharmacy, jewelry, book;
- dirty, embossed, dusty, strange, dark, small, boarded up.
Showcase can:
- sparkle, hang, scatter, crack, burn, gape, crumble, ignite;
- rattle, reflect, be seen, look, cost, exhibit, tell, etc.
Examples:
- "The bookcase was crammed with new releases and bestsellers that were available at half price due to holiday sales."
- "The museum's dusty display windows have not seen visitors for a long time, and the building itself has fallen into considerable disrepair over the past five years."
- "After 8 p.m., the night windows are usually lit, and then there is a desire to just walk around and admire the cityscapes."
Most often the word is used in relation to refrigeration equipment, in the field of advertising, technology, economics, in general vocabulary. A showcase is what we see everywhere, when we go shopping or just to look at the goods of modern manufacturers. In shops, shops, museums, it is impossible to do without this detail of interior design. It has become so familiar in everyday life that an analysis of the semantic properties of the concept makes one look at it from a different perspective.new side. It is worth thinking about the richness of the Russian language on the examples of the characteristics and descriptions of just this one word.
