In the modern Russian literary language, the word littlefinger is used in the usual sense of "the fifth, smallest finger on the hand, on the foot" (Ozhegov S. I. Dictionary of the Russian language): "He grew long white nails and when writing rested on the paper with a little finger with a particularly long and particularly white nail" (Fedin. First joys); "His fingers were very thin; when he took money out of his purse, he held out his little finger" (Panova. Satellites).
Currently, several derivatives of the noun littlefinger are known. Colloquial diminutive formation littlefinger and the adjective littlefinger, used as part of the anatomical term-the phrase little finger joint: "About women's eyelashes or little finger, he could tell you a whole bunch of words" (Chekhov. Strong feelings).
The word littlefinger is common Slavic. It is found in almost all modern Slavic languages. However, in some of them, this noun and its derivatives are used not only to denote the fifth and smallest finger of the hand and foot, but also appear with the meaning "the youngest child (son, less often-daughter) in the family": Ukrainian colloquial mizynets (littlefinger)" [finger] littlefinger", "the youngest son in the family". family", mizinka ("younger daughter "(Ukrainian-Russian dictionary. Kiev, 1984); Belarusian mezenets "littlefinger" (Krapiva K. Russian-Belarusian dictionary. Minsk, 1982. Vol. 1); Bulgarian dialect words littlefinger, mizul "the last child in the family - the youngest son)" and "littlefinger" (in common Bulgarian "littlefinger" - kutre), mizinka -
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"the last child (the last child in the family - the youngest daughter) "(Mladenov S. Етимологически и правописенъ речникъ на българския книжевенъ езикъ. Sofia, 1941; Bernstein S. B. Bulgarian-Russian dictionary. Moscow, 1975); Serbo-Croatian mezinac, mezimac "junior, beloved son", also " littlefinger "( but usually "little finger" - mali pret); Slavonian mezinec, mexinek "younger son", "little finger"; Czech ...
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