For research, let's take an expression that we quite often use in speech, we understand its meaning, but hardly anyone knows where it came from. Unless a person specifically asked such a question or he is not a specialist in the field of linguistics.

"Quiet sap". The meaning of phraseology in Russian

When we want to say about someone that he acts stealthily, imperceptibly penetrates somewhere, performs work slowly but persistently, then we use the expression "acts on the sly" in speech.

Most often, a stable combination is used when a person is given a negative characteristic, indicating his tendency to actions that are undesirable for others. But despite this, he does them on the sly, against the will of other people.

So what kind of glanders are we talking about in phraseology? And why is she quiet? Let's try to find answers to the questions posed by referring to the information available in various sources.

Meanings of the word "sapa"

In Russian, there are several meanings of the word "sapa".

Firstly, this is the name of a fish of the genus Chebak. In German, a similar word means a kind of carp.

Secondly, in French, "sapa" means a hoe, a pick - a tool for excavation.

The third meaning of the word came from Italian to French, and then to Russian. And it is closely related to the second meaning. Sapa is called a trench or trench. The word has taken root in military terminology. And this is not at all accidental. The word owes its birth to the warriors who besieged medieval castles. It was they who were the first to use the quiet glanders to get into the enemy's fortress.

In some areas, a sapa is called a snake. This is the fourth meaning of the word.

Which explanation to choose?

Of the four proposed meanings of the word "sapa", you need to choose the one that most accurately matches the meaning of the stable combination "quiet glanders".

At first glance, it may seem that the name of a fish or a snake is very suitable. After all, they are able to move silently, lead a lifestyle hidden from human eyes.

But studies conducted by linguists have proven that the expression "silent glanders" has nothing to do with these meanings, but is directly related to the second and third.

Historical reference

In the military practice of the 16th-19th centuries, a special method of laying tunnels, trenches, and undermining was used. It was called "quiet glanders." Crossover glanders is another name for the same type of engineering structures. It must be said that the flip (quiet) glanders were also used during the Great Patriotic War.

Work on the sly was carried out secretly from the enemy, without access to the surface. The work was very hard, but its result was a won battle due to the fact that through the tunnel it was possible to secretly penetrate behind enemy lines or destroy its fortifications.

After the invention of gunpowder, glanders were used to plant bombs under the foundations of buildings or some other structures. Special people, who were called sappers, began to deal with the quiet glanders.

In addition to quiet glanders, military engineers used flying glanders. The trench dug on the surface, but under cover from the enemy. It was installed in advance and was built from bags of earth, barrels and other improvised means.

If a large number of soldiers were used to dig tunnels, then the work, although painstaking, was not so exhausting. The final result could be obtained fairly quickly.

A group of small numbers made quiet or flying glanders slowly, passing the same area several times.

The decision to use sly glanders was rarely made by military commanders because of the laboriousness of the work. It was used only in cases where there was no other way to break the enemy's resistance.

The use of expression in modern language

So, initially, only the military knew who the quiet glanders were. The expression was used only in its direct meaning. That is, if they said "is engaged in the sly," then this meant that a person is digging a tunnel, making a secret dig. There was no other meaning.

It so happened that traveling through different languages ​​​​and countries, the expression fell into the everyday life of the civilian population. Here it acquired a figurative meaning, and its direct meaning was gradually forgotten.

The expression is most often used in a derogatory sense. Acts on the sly - this means weaving intrigues, plotting, preparing a "dig". For the time being, the surrounding people are unaware of such a person’s behavior and are unaware of his true intentions.

In Russian, phraseological units are used as stable indivisible lexical units. Their meaning does not consist of the meaning of the words that make them up. But studying the history of the appearance of a stable combination can be very useful. Thus, we get acquainted with the history of peoples, reveal the secret of the appearance of words.

For research, let's take an expression that we quite often use in speech, we understand its meaning, but hardly anyone knows where it came from. Unless a person specifically asked such a question or he is not a specialist in the field of linguistics.

"Quiet sap". The meaning of phraseology in Russian

When we want to say about someone that he acts stealthily, imperceptibly penetrates somewhere, performs work slowly but persistently, then we use the expression "acts on the sly" in speech.

Most often, a stable combination is used when a person is given a negative characteristic, indicating his tendency to actions that are undesirable for others. But despite this, he does them on the sly, against the will of other people.

So what kind of glanders are we talking about in phraseology? And why is she quiet? Let's try to find answers to the questions posed by referring to the information available in various sources.

Meanings of the word "sapa"

In Russian, there are several meanings of the word "sapa".

Firstly, this is the name of a fish of the genus Chebak. In German, a similar word means a kind of carp.

Secondly, in French, "sapa" means a hoe, a pick - a tool for excavation.

The third meaning of the word came from Italian to French, and then to Russian. And it is closely related to the second meaning. Sapa is called a trench or trench. The word has taken root in military terminology. And this is not at all accidental. The word owes its birth to the warriors who besieged medieval castles. It was they who were the first to use the quiet glanders to get into the enemy's fortress.

In some areas, a sapa is called a snake. This is the fourth meaning of the word.

Which explanation to choose?

Of the four proposed meanings of the word "sapa", you need to choose the one that most accurately matches the meaning of the stable combination "quiet glanders".

At first glance, it may seem that the name of a fish or a snake is very suitable. After all, they are able to move silently, lead a lifestyle hidden from human eyes.

But studies conducted by linguists have proven that the expression "silent glanders" has nothing to do with these meanings, but is directly related to the second and third.

Historical reference

In the military practice of the 16th-19th centuries, a special method was used for laying tunnels, trenches, and undermining. It was called "quiet glanders." Crossover glanders is another name for the same type of engineering structures. It must be said that the flip (quiet) glanders were also used during the Great Patriotic War.

Work on the sly was carried out secretly from the enemy, without access to the surface. The work was very hard, but its result was a won battle due to the fact that through the tunnel it was possible to secretly penetrate behind enemy lines or destroy its fortifications.

After the invention of gunpowder, glanders were used to plant bombs under the foundations of buildings or some other structures. Special people, who were called sappers, began to deal with the quiet glanders.

In addition to quiet glanders, military engineers used flying glanders. The trench dug on the surface, but under cover from the enemy. It was installed in advance and was built from bags of earth, barrels and other improvised means.

If a large number of soldiers were used to dig tunnels, then the work, although painstaking, was not so exhausting. The final result could be obtained fairly quickly.

A group of small numbers made quiet or flying glanders slowly, passing the same area several times.

The decision to use sly glanders was rarely made by military commanders because of the laboriousness of the work. It was used only in cases where there was no other way to break the enemy's resistance.

The use of expression in modern language

So, initially, only the military knew who the quiet glanders were. The expression was used only in its direct meaning. That is, if they said "is engaged in the sly," then this meant that a person is digging a tunnel, making a secret dig. There was no other meaning.

It so happened that traveling through different languages ​​​​and countries, the expression fell into the everyday life of the civilian population. Here it acquired a figurative meaning, and its direct meaning was gradually forgotten.

The expression is most often used in a derogatory sense. Acts on the sly - this means weaving intrigues, plotting, preparing a "dig". For the time being, the surrounding people are unaware of such a person’s behavior and are unaware of his true intentions.

In Russian, phraseological units are used as stable indivisible lexical units. Their meaning does not consist of the meaning of the words that make them up. But studying the history of the appearance of a stable combination can be very useful. Thus, we get acquainted with the history of peoples, reveal the secret of the appearance of words.

What does the expression "quiet glanders" mean?

Natalia sapegina

Silent glanders - slowly

The expression "on the sly" means secretly, imperceptibly, on the sly, stealthily. The word "sapa" is almost unknown to modern native speakers. Sapa is a tunnel, a trench, a ditch to the position of the enemy, which was made imperceptibly, covertly during the siege of the fortress in order to approach it, to undermine its walls. In the old days, "to conduct glanders" meant "to dig", by the way, hence the word "sapper" - "a serviceman of the engineering and construction troops."

WHO IS "SILENT SAPA"? 12 EXPRESSIONS THAT WE HAVE NOT THINKED ABOUT THE ORIGIN

Let's try to figure out where such strange words and phrases came from in the Russian language.

quiet glanders

The word sape means "hoe" in French. In the 16th-19th centuries, this term denoted a method of digging a trench or tunnel to approach the fortifications. The expression "on the sly", which means: stealthily, imperceptibly penetrate somewhere, originally meant to covertly dig, dig a secret tunnel.

Often the purpose of digging such trenches was to lay explosives under the fortification, so the word "sapper" is also from these times.

suffer from bullshit

And here is the promised obscenity. Information about how recently the word "dick" has acquired obscene connotations definitely sets up philosophical reflections on the conditionality of prohibitions.

In Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" we read: "- And milk mushrooms? - suddenly asked Ferapont, pronouncing the letter "g" aspirated, almost like a dick. Of course, the classic didn’t have anything bad in mind - a century and a half ago, the aspirated letter “x” was called that in the Church Slavonic alphabet, that’s all.

After the reform of 1918, the name of the letter disappeared from primers, but the word itself remained in the spoken language. Since there was no object, but there was a word, it quickly found a use - they began to replace the well-known three-letter word. Yes, with such success that after a couple of decades, the obscene meaning was finally assigned to a harmless word.

The most ironic thing is that the origin of the name of the disgraced letter was originally quite divine - from the word "cherub".

At the same time, the word "garbage" began to sound indecent, which is not even a derivative of dick. This is just the name of a common hernia, derived from the Latin term hernia. In the 19th century, such a diagnosis was often made to wealthy petty-bourgeois children who wanted to "slope" from military service - peasants usually did not have enough money for "garbage". So then half of Russia suffered from garbage. Not like now.

Latest Chinese Warning

Those born in the 60s of the last century remember how this expression arose. But the next generations were already deprived of the pleasure of following the confrontation between the United States and China at the turn of the 50s and 60s of the 20th century. When, in 1958, China, outraged that the US air force and navy were supporting Taiwan, issued its angry note, called the "Last Warning", the world shuddered in horror and held its breath in anticipation of a third world war.

When, seven years later, China issued the four hundredth note under the same name, the world no longer shook with horror, but with laughter. Fortunately, China did not go further than menacing words, Taiwan still retained its independence, which Beijing does not recognize to this day. Those who know about the origin of the expression use it correctly: in fact, this is not a final warning, but empty threats that will not be followed by action.

slap

This word, as well as the expression "Hey, hat!", Has nothing to do with headgear. In slang speech, it came straight from Yiddish and is a warped form of the German verb "schlafen" - "to sleep." “Hat”, respectively, means “sleepy, open”. While you are here hat, your suitcase is drape.

bosom friend

Everything is obvious here: a bosom friend is one with whom you can jointly “pour over the Adam's apple”, that is, mentally drink.

A woman with a twist

And this image was given to us personally by Leo Tolstoy. It was he who first introduced the expression "a woman with a twist."

In his drama “The Living Corpse,” one character says to another: “My wife was an ideal woman ... But what can I say? There was no zest, - you know, is there a zest in kvass? - there was no game in our life.

Cast pearls before swine

These are the words from the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ: “Do not give anything holy to dogs and do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample it under their feet and, turning, tear you to pieces.” "Bible Matt. 7:6" / Synodal translation, 1816-1862

With pearls, the phrase sounds somewhat more logical, and the expression about beads, which is ideal in its meaninglessness, is simply explained - that’s how pearls used to be called in Rus'. So the word “beads” was fixed in the expression and got into colloquial speech from the Church Slavonic text of the Bible.

Filkin's letter

Unlike Trishka with a caftan or Kuzka with his mysterious mother, Filka is a completely historical person. This is the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Philip II of Moscow. He was a short-sighted man, who forgot that the most important duty of the Moscow pontiff is to diligently give to Caesar what is Caesar's, so he relied on his misfortune with the tsar-priest Ivan the Terrible. He took it into his head, you know, to expose the bloody atrocities of the tsarist regime - he began to write true stories about how many people the tsar tortured, tortured, burned and poisoned. The tsar called the Metropolitan’s writing “Filka’s letter”, swore that Filka was lying, and imprisoned Filka in a distant monastery, where the sent assassins killed the metropolitan almost immediately.

Places not so remote

In the Penal Code of 1845, places of exile were divided into "remote" and "not so remote". By "remote" was meant the Siberian provinces and further Sakhalin, by "not so remote" - Karelia, Vologda, Arkhangelsk regions and some other places located just a few days away from St. Petersburg. This turn has firmly entered the language of writers of the second half of the 19th century to denote exile.

Not at ease

The expression comes from the French phrase n'être pas dans son assiette. The French word assiette means not only "plate", but also "position; state; mood".

A well-known story says that at the beginning of the 19th century, a would-be translator translated the phrase "buddy, you're out of sorts" from some French play as "you're out of your element."

Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov could not pass by such a brilliant blunder and put an illiterate phrase into Famusov's mouth: “My dear! You are not at ease. Sleep is needed from the road. With the light hand of the poet, the crazy phrase took root in the Russian language.

Not scared idiot

The authorship of the expression is attributed to Ilya Ilf. In the Notebooks, which the writer has been keeping since 1925, there is a phrase: “The land of unafraid idiots. It's time to scare." The expression parodied the title of Prishvin's then popular book "In the land of fearless birds."

In the 80s of the last century, the phrase had a continuation: "The country of not frightened idiots and evergreen tomatoes." The authorship of the second part belongs to Mikhail Zhvanetsky - "evergreen tomatoes" first appeared in his miniature "You weren't buried in Odessa in August?"

Sharpen laces

Lyasy (balusters) are chiseled curly columns of railings at the porch. At first, “sharpening balusters” meant having an elegant, whimsical, ornate (like balusters) conversation. However, there were few craftsmen to conduct such a conversation, and over time, the expression began to mean empty chatter.

Sometimes they say "sneak peek". And who is Sapa and why is she quiet?

Svetlana Rudyagina

Who is the quiet guy?
By your numerous requests, dear readers, today's educational program will reveal the secret of the expression "on the sly". First, let's figure out what kind of glanders it is, and then find out why it is quiet.
In Russian, there are as many as four meanings of this word. Firstly, a sapoy is a fish from the genus chebak, possibly from the German word Zope, denoting a type of carp. Secondly, they called the hoe or pickaxe, from the French word sape. Thirdly, as a consequence of the second definition, a trench or trench was called a glanders. Finally, the fourth meaning of this many-sided word is a snake, from the Sanskrit "sarpa". There is also the word "sap" - an infectious disease akin to a cold, which horses often had. Probably, it was from him that the isomorphic version of our phrase “quiet glanders” came from, unanimously rejected by all dictionaries. I hope no one will mind if we also do not consider it.
So, there are four saps available, but which one is the quietest? Sapa snake crawls very quietly. Sapa fish are apparently even quieter. However, neither one nor the other is relevant to the expression under study. In the wars of the 16th-19th centuries, trenches were called quiet glanders, laid underground secretly from the enemy. Quieter than fish and snakes, the military digged (sapu) to enemy fortifications, and then blew them up. The military engineers involved in these works were called sappers.
Later, the expression "on the sly" entered civil speech, where it began to mean "sneak, slowly, imperceptibly go, penetrate somewhere."
Jerzy Lisowski

Sapa (from French sape - hoe) - a way of digging a trench, ditch or tunnel to approach the fortifications. It was used in the XVI-XIX centuries.
Two options are known: flying and flip-flop glanders (quiet, secretive). The work of the flying glanders was carried out from the surface of the earth under the cover of a pre-prepared protective mound of barrels and bags of earth, and the crossover was carried out from the bottom of the original ditch or trench without the workers going to the surface.
The expression to act "on the sly" which means: sneak, slowly, imperceptibly go, penetrate somewhere. Initially, it meant secretly digging, digging a secret tunnel.

Olga Namestnikova

Firstly, a sapoy is a fish from the genus chebak, possibly from the German word Zope, denoting a type of carp. Secondly, they called the hoe or pickaxe, from the French word sape. Thirdly, as a consequence of the second definition, a trench or trench was called a glanders. Finally, the fourth meaning of this many-sided word is a snake, from the Sanskrit "sarpa". There is also the word "sap" - an infectious disease akin to a cold, which horses often had. Probably, it was from him that the isomorphic version of our phrase “quiet glanders” came from, unanimously rejected by all dictionaries. I hope no one will mind if we also do not consider it.
So, there are four saps available, but which one is the quietest? Sapa snake crawls very quietly. Sapa fish are apparently even quieter. However, neither one nor the other is relevant to the expression under study. In the wars of the 16th-19th centuries, trenches were called quiet glanders, laid underground secretly from the enemy. Quieter than fish and snakes, the military digged (sapu) to enemy fortifications, and then blew them up. The military engineers involved in these works were called sappers.
Later, the expression "on the sly" entered civil speech, where it began to mean "sneak, slowly, imperceptibly go, penetrate somewhere."

The origin of catchphrases and expressions!

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The origin of catchphrases and expressions!

We use such phrases every day in speech, without thinking at all about their original meaning and origin. Why is the last warning Chinese? Who is the quiet guy? And why should a successful business fail?

Get to the handle



In ancient Rus', kalachi was baked in the shape of a castle with a round bow. Citizens often bought kalachi and ate them right on the street, holding this bow, or handle. For reasons of hygiene, the pen itself was not used for food, but was given to the poor or thrown to be eaten by dogs. According to one version, they said about those who did not disdain to eat it: it reached the handle. And today the expression “to reach the handle” means to completely sink, to lose human appearance.
bosom friend



The old expression "pour over the Adam's apple" meant "get drunk", "drink alcohol." Hence the phraseological unit “bosom friend” was formed, which today is used to refer to a very close friend.
Pour in the first number



In the old days, schoolchildren were often flogged, often without any fault of the punished. If the mentor showed particular zeal, and the student got hit especially hard, he could be released from further vices in the current month, up to the first day of the next month. This is how the expression "pour on the first number" arose.
Goof



Prosak used to be a special machine for weaving ropes and ropes. It had a complex structure and twisted strands so strongly that getting clothes, hair, beard into it could cost a person life. It was from such cases that the expression “get into a mess” came about, which today means to be in an awkward position.
Latest Chinese Warning



In the 1950s and 1960s, American aircraft often violated Chinese airspace for the purpose of reconnaissance. The Chinese authorities recorded every violation and each time sent a "warning" to the United States through diplomatic channels, although no real action followed, and such warnings were counted by the hundreds. This policy has given rise to the expression "the last Chinese warning", meaning threats without consequences.
hang dogs



When a person is blamed, accused of something, you can hear the expression: "They hang dogs on him." At first glance, this phrase is absolutely illogical. However, it is not associated with an animal at all, but with a different meaning of the word "dog" - burdock, thorn - now almost never used.
quiet glanders



The word sape means "hoe" in French. In the 16th-19th centuries, the term "sapa" meant a way to open a trench, ditch or tunnel to approach the fortifications. Gunpowder bombs were sometimes planted in the tunnels to the castle walls, and the specialists trained to do this were called sappers. And from the covert digging of tunnels came the expression "quiet glanders", which today is used to denote cautious and inconspicuous actions.
Big boss



The most experienced and strong hauler, walking in the strap first, was called a bump. This has evolved into the expression "big shot" to refer to an important person.
Case burnt out



Previously, if a court case disappeared, then a person could not be legally charged. Cases often burned down: either from a fire in the wooden buildings of the courts, or from deliberate arson for a bribe. In such cases, the defendants said: "The case burned out." Today, this expression is used when we talk about the successful completion of a major undertaking.
Leave in English



When someone leaves without saying goodbye, we use the expression "left in English." Although in the original this idiom was invented by the British themselves, but it sounded like ‘to take French leave’ (“leave in French”). It appeared during the Seven Years' War in the 18th century as a mockery of French soldiers who arbitrarily left the location of the unit. Then the French copied this expression, but in relation to the British, and in this form it was fixed in the Russian language.
Blue blood



The Spanish royal family and nobility prided themselves on the fact that, unlike the common people, they traced their ancestry to the West Goths and never mixed with the Moors who entered Spain from Africa. Unlike the dark-skinned commoners, blue veins stood out on the pale skin of the upper class, and therefore they called themselves sangre azul, which means "blue blood". Hence, this expression for the designation of the aristocracy penetrated into many European languages, including Russian.
And a no brainer



The source of the expression “And it’s clear to a hedgehog” is Mayakovsky’s poem (“It’s clear even to a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatsky story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, two-year students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year, the expression "no brainer" was very relevant.
Wash the bones



The Orthodox Greeks, as well as some Slavic peoples, had a custom of secondary burial - the bones of the deceased were removed, washed with water and wine and put back. If the corpse was found undecayed and swollen, this meant that during his lifetime this person was a sinner and a curse lies on him - to come out of the grave at night in the form of a ghoul, vampire, ghoul and destroy people. Thus, the rite of washing the bones was needed to make sure that there was no such spell.
The highlight of the program

The opening of the Eiffel Tower, which looked like a nail, was timed to coincide with the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris, which caused a sensation. Since then, the expression "highlight of the program" has entered the language.
Not by washing, so by skating



In the old days, village women, after washing, “rolled” the laundry with the help of a special rolling pin. Well-rolled linen turned out to be wrung out, ironed and clean, even if the washing was not of very high quality.
newspaper duck



“One scientist, having bought 20 ducks, immediately ordered to cut one of them into small pieces, with which he fed the rest of the birds. A few minutes later, he did the same with the other duck, and so on, until there was one left, which, in this way, devoured 19 of her friends. This note was published in the newspaper by the Belgian humorist Cornelissen to mock the gullibility of the public. Since then, according to one version, false news is called "newspaper ducks."
Seven Fridays in a week



Previously, Friday was a free day from work, and, as a result, a market day. On Friday, when they received the goods, they promised to give back the money due for it on the next market day. Since then, to refer to people who do not keep their promises, they say: "He has seven Fridays in the week."
Scapegoat



According to the Hebrew rite, on the day of the absolution of sins, the high priest put his hands on the goat's head and thereby laid on him the sins of the whole people. Then the goat was taken to the Judean desert and released. This is where the expression “scapegoat” comes from.
fail



To fail means: to fail, to fail on the way to the goal. However, the word "fiasco" in Italian means a large two-liter bottle. How could such a strange combination of words have been created and how did it acquire its modern meaning? There is an explanation for this. It was born from the unsuccessful attempt of the famous Italian comedian Bianconelli to play a cheerful pantomime in front of the public with a large bottle in his hand. After his failure, the words "fiasco of Bianconelli" took on the meaning of an actor's failure, and then the very word "fiasco" began to mean failure.
Why are newbies called "dummies"?



A kettle is an inexperienced user, a person who does not know how to expediently use a personal computer in the amount necessary for him. The term comes from mountaineering. Experienced climbers call a teapot a beginner who has made his first ascent to the top of the mountain. As a rule, such people do not first of all perform the necessary actions to set up the camp, but pose for photographers, resting one hand on their side, while the other is set aside, leaning on an ice ax, a ski pole, etc., which makes their silhouette strongly reminiscent of a teapot.

Series of messages "Aphorisms": APHORISMSPart 1 - Robot of aphorisms
Part 2 - Aphorisms
...
Part 26 - Aphorisms and Sayings of Marcus Aurelius
Part 27 - APHORISMS OF ANCIENT ROME
Part 28 - The origin of catchphrases and expressions!
Part 29 - Aphorisms of Socrates
Part 30 - Stanislav Jerzy Lec
...
Part 44 - Kozma Prutkov is a special phenomenon in Russian literature
Part 45 - Over a cup of tea
Part 46 - BRIGHT APHORISMS BY MARK TWAIN

Phraseologism "The quiet glanders" meaning

Do something quietly, covertly.

Everyone knows the meaning of the word sapper". It came to us from the French language and has the meaning "one who does glanders." However, where did this word "sapa" come from and what does it mean?
In order to understand this, it is necessary to "go" to Italy. There, the word “tsappa” is similar in sound to a shovel, a spade for earthworks. Borrowed from the Italians, in French it was transformed into the word "sap", and the meaning acquired "trench, excavation and undermining". Subsequently, the word "sapper" was obtained from it, denoting a profession.
Soon it got into our language, and took root in the military vocabulary. In the language of the military, a similar expression “on the sly” appeared, meaning work that must be carried out without noise, quietly and carefully, in complete secrecy in order to sneak up on the enemy unnoticed.
Now this expression is widely used in common colloquial language, where it has a meaning: quietly, carefully, in complete secrecy. However, it is used where it is necessary to emphasize intrigues, intrigues, any reprehensible activity.

Example:

“Did you see (Galya)? Well, how, Nikitin? Granaturov asked suspiciously. - Strong, strong, Musketeer! Are you acting on the quiet? "I don't understand," said Nikitin. “He walked me to the gate and got some fresh air” (Yu. Bondarev).

‘(Sapa - in military art, an imperceptible dig during the siege of a fortress to undermine its walls).

0 To impress girls, you need to not only flex your muscles and show off your golden fix, but also show off your intellect. Therefore, if you are a backward person, and your whole life position is stuffing "frags", and fap on your "stats", then you will not see girls like your ears. I recommend adding our site site to your bookmarks in order to join our wisdom at your leisure. Today we will talk about an interesting expression, this quiet glanders which means you can read a little below.
However, before you continue, I would like to recommend you a couple of other articles on the topic of phraseological units. For example, what does Seven Fridays in a week mean; how to understand Without a king in the head; the meaning of the expression Put on the back burner; what does the prodigal son mean, etc.
So let's continue what does sly sapoy mean? There are several meanings of this expression, but we will analyze only the most popular ones.

quiet glanders- means to move stealthily, imperceptibly; slowly and gradually achieve the goal; penetrate somewhere, etc.

Synonym for the expression Silent glanders: quietly, quietly, secretly, from under the arm, on the sly, sewn and covered, quietly, quietly, quietly.

Today it is finally time to talk about this ironic phrase. First, let's understand what does sapa mean, and then we'll see why she's so quiet. It turns out that in our language there are as many as five meanings of this concept. For example:

First value. It is believed that this word comes from Sanskrit - "sarpa", which can be translated as "snake".

Second value. Previously, the word "Sap" was quite common (not to be confused with "sap dvach"), which denoted a disease similar to a runny nose, mainly horses were ill with it.

Third value. This rare word was used to refer to a trench or trench.

Fourth meaning. This term was borrowed from the French language "sape". They called them a pick or a hoe, which actually dug trenches and trenches.

Fifth meaning. Perhaps this term originated from the German language "zope", the so-called fish from the chebak family (a type of roach, ray-finned fish from the carp family, common in the Urals and Siberia).

Well, here we have given the meaning of five glanders, but the question is which of them is the quietest. What do we have, a snake crawling silently and gliding in the grass very imperceptibly, or a fish hiding in the water column?
Oddly enough, these creatures have nothing to do with the word being analyzed here. In fact, the version with trenches is closer, more precisely with underground passages that were laid underground to the rear of the enemy. Military engineers, quieter than snakes and deeper than fish, paved the way through which a stream of soldiers was soon to pour, sweeping away the enemy camp, and cutting out everyone in its path. Since then, the people who laid the quiet glanders began to be called, sappers.
After some time, this popular expression got into everyday speech, where it began to mean, " do something on the sly, imperceptibly, stealthily, not to be discovered" and so on.

By reading this article, you have learned what does sly mean and now you can explain the meaning of this

Many expressions in Russian can be understood literally by everyone, but no one knows what they specifically mean. One of these catchphrases is the expression " sly". This idiom consists of two words, the word "quiet" does not require any explanation, but the word "sapoy" makes many people think. What is this "sap" and what does it mean you can find out on this page site

The history of the expression "quiet glanders"

First version.
Researchers claim that the word "sapoy" was borrowed into Russian from the French "sape", which means a hoe in translation. However, there is no such word in the translator.
What is remarkable is a word like "saper" can be translated as undermining or digging. That is, if you think logically, then this expression means to make a hidden dig and undermine enemy fortifications.

Second version.
In Rus' there was a snake, which was called Sapa. Therefore, the phrase "quiet glanders" can be interpreted as moving around with a "silent snake". After all, if you saw how the snake moves, then it seems that it slides along the surface completely silently.

No matter how many new versions arise, the meaning of this idiom "on the sly" will not change. It means only one thing - to do everything secretly and imperceptibly. And so that no one would guess.