Seeing with the envious eye-the sin ‘invidia’ in history of Polish language

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of three old names of the fourth from among the seven deadly sins – the sin of invidia. These units are characterized by one common feature, it’s etymon in the form of the verb – ’seeing’ referring to the ‘body talk’of a jealous person. The general direction of these analyses was designated as the semasiological method. Stemming from etymology investigated how particular word-forms have taken new meanings, figuring out the character of these changes, movements and the goal which these modificationsserved for. To the end of the 17th century the names zazdrość, zawiść and nienawiść functioned as a group of very familiar synonyms. In the course of time it’s gist changed through semantic modification. As a consequence the name of the sin – invidia formed into the lexeme – jealousy whose contemporary meaning differs hugely from the theological perspective.