Old Church Slavonicism

one of the features of Old Church Slavonic that distinguish Old Church Slavonic from the other Slavic languages and that are encountered in texts written in the earlier or modern Slavic languages. Old Church Slavonicisms are found in the phonetic makeup of words, as in glava (“head”) and moshch’ (“power”); compare the Russian golova and mocti. They also appear in vocabulary, as in istina (“truth”) and brak (“marriage”)—compare the Russian pravda and svad’ba—and zhivot in the sense of zhizri (“life”), as found in ne na zhivot, a na smert’ (“to the death”).

Examples of Old Church Slavonicisms in word-formation include iskhod (“outcome”) and proshenie (“application”), as contrasted with the Russian vykhod (“exit”) and pros’ba (“request”). In grammar, Old Church Slavonicisms are seen in dobrago (“good,” genitive singular masculine/neuter) and dobrumu (“good,” dative singular masculine/neuter); compare the Russian dobrogo and dobromu.