Language through Literature

A Horsey Name


На предложение вырвать больной зуб генерал ответил отказом.

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To the suggestion that the bad tooth be pulled out the general answered with a refusal.

Where it stands

Приезжал доктор. The doctor came.

Он поковырял в зубе, прописал хину, но и это не помогло. He poked about in the tooth, prescribed quinine, but that did not help either.

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.

Между прочим и приказчик Булдеева Иван Евсеич пришёл к нему и посоветовал полечиться заговором. Among others, Buldeyev's clerk Ivan Yevseich also came to him and advised him to try a cure by charm.

The words in this sentence

на
on, onto; at
предложе́ние
proposal, suggestion (nom/acc sg)
вы́рвать
to pull out, extract (inf)
больно́й
sick, ill (m); patient
зуб
tooth
генера́л
general (high rank)
отве́тил
he answered (past m) — ответить
отка́зом
refusal (instr sg) — отказ

А. П. Чехов, «Лошадиная фамилия», 1885 · sentence 4 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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