Language through Literature

A Horsey Name


Он поковырял в зубе, прописал хину, но и это не помогло.

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Show the English

He poked about in the tooth, prescribed quinine, but that did not help either.

Where it stands

Он полоскал рот водкой, коньяком, прикладывал к больному зубу табачную копоть, опий, скипидар, керосин, мазал щёку йодом, в ушах у него была вата, смоченная в спирту, но всё это или не помогало, или вызывало тошноту. He rinsed his mouth with vodka and with brandy, applied tobacco soot, opium, turpentine and kerosene to the aching tooth, painted his cheek with iodine, and kept cotton wool soaked in spirits in his ears, but all of it either did no good or brought on nausea.

Приезжал доктор. The doctor came.

На предложение вырвать больной зуб генерал ответил отказом. To the suggestion that the bad tooth be pulled out the general answered with a refusal.

Все домашние — жена, дети, прислуга, даже поварёнок Петька предлагали каждый своё средство. The whole household — his wife, the children, the servants, even Petka the kitchen boy — each proposed a remedy of his own.

The words in this sentence

он
he
поковыря́л
he poked about (past m) — поковырять
в
in, into
зу́бе
tooth (prep sg) — зуб
прописа́л
prescribed (past m of прописать) — прописать
хи́ну
quinine (acc sg) — хина
но
but
и
and; also, even
э́то
this; it is — этот
не
not
помогло́
helped, did good (past n of помочь) — помочь

А. П. Чехов, «Лошадиная фамилия», 1885 · sentence 3 of 56

This is one sentence of «Лошадиная фамилия» — 56 sentences long, and the whole story reads like this: every word glossed where it stands, the English out of your eyeline until you ask for it. Free, no account.

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