Archaisms are not just obsolete words, but those that have moved into this category due to the emergence of new words. For example, today no one calls poems verses, this word can only be found in literature, theatrical productions or in everyday speech to give an ironic or sublime connotation. Sometimes a synonym is replaced not by the whole word itself, but only by its lexical meaning. For example, the word "rise". It is used today in the sense of "to raise a rebellion, to oppose something, to be reborn, to rise again" and has a high stylistic coloring. But once in Russia it was an everyday household, which was used in the meaning of "get up, rise to your feet." Or another example: "Don't be sorry for your belly!", which means "Don't be sorry for your life!" As you can see, the word belly in Russian has been preserved, but its meaning has changed. And in the meaning of "life" the word "stomach" is archaism. Examples of other changes: necktie (lexico-phoneticarchaism, modern synonym - "tie"); father! (grammatical archaism, the word "father" is in the vocative case, which is not used in modern Russian); happiness (word-building archaism, today the word "happiness" with such a suffix is not used).
Semantic archaism deserves special attention. Examples of such archaisms were given above ("belly" in the meaning of "life"). They have a form familiar to the reader, but a different meaning, as a result of which difficulties arise in understanding the text. Very often semantic archaisms are found in religious literature. For example, “enemy” is a demon, “delight” is not something beautiful and pleasant, but a temptation, something that leads to sin, “word” (“in the beginning was the Word”) is not a unit of speech, but intelligence. There can be a rather subtle semantic connection between archaism and its modern synonym. "Charm" can indeed be a temptation, but in the modern sense, the word "charm" has a more positive connotation - not necessarily any lovely object will be sinful. Such nuances are very important for a correct understanding of the meaning of the work. Even among relatively modern authors, for example, Anna Akhmatova, one can find archaic words. Examples from literature are very numerous: archaic words can be found both in prose and in poetry. In the latter, they play a special role, give sublimity, support melodiousness and therefore look natural.
Archaismsin English: examples
"Old words", or "archaic words" (i.e. archaisms), can be classified in English almost the same way as Russian. Although, of course, there are peculiarities associated with the grammatical structure of the language, however, you can find almost any type of archaisms mentioned above.
For example, thou - you (instead of you) - the most striking and interesting archaism. Examples of the forms of this word: thee - you (instead of the modern you) and thy - yours (the modern word is your). Yes, once in the English language there was an appeal to "you", but today, to whomever we address, we say "you", that is, You. "You" in English fell out of use gradually. Very rarely, but this word can be found today. For example, in a famous Metallica song called The Unfirgiven, there is a line: "So I dub thee unforgiven" - "So I call you unforgiven." Of course, this is a unique archaism. Examples of other obsolete words do not so clearly reflect the social and psychological changes in the lives of English-speaking people:
1. Hither - "here" (modern - here). At the same time, the form hither, although obsolete today, refers to early modern English. An older form is hider, which comes from Proto-Germanic. However, despite the similarity between hither and here, there is no identity between them. "Here" comes from a completely different word meaning "to be in this place",hither has a slightly different semantic connotation - "move here", not without reason there is an idiomatic expression with the meaning "back and forth" - hither and thither.
2. Betwixt - "between". The synonym used today is between. As it is easy to see, the obsolete word took part in the word formation of the modern lexical unit.
3. Hearken or harken - "to listen". Some sources claim that this is historicism, that is, an obsolete word that has no analogues in the modern language, but in foreign dictionaries you can see the mark archaic. Again, the connection between hearken and hear (modern "listen"), according to etymological dictionaries, exists, therefore it is impossible to argue that this word means a phenomenon that has disappeared or has fallen into disuse.
But the word phaeton is not archaic. After all, chaises, open four-wheeled carriages, are no longer used, and will forever remain an object from the past.
Thus, historicism is what characterizes an era. These words are obsolete along with the phenomena or objects they describe. Archaisms are obsolete units of speech. They would still be successfully used today if new forms had not pressed them.
