Streszczenie
The article is an attempt to present the linguistic explication of the feeling of fear in the
Russian language. As it was proved by the linguistic data, the lexeme ‘fear’ (‘страх’) has
several synonyms with different semantic value, such as ‘тревога’, ‘ужас’, ‘паника’. The
feeling itself can be caused by real or irrational circumstances treated or estimated by the
subject as threat.
The paper analyses the expressions, phraseologisms and proverbs related to the feeling
of fear. They present how the word ‘fear’ (‘страх’) is used in the language and on its
semantic level. What is more, the phraseologisms prove that the majority of physical
symptoms of the feeling ‘fear’ obtain their linguistic explication. Proverbs complete the
received picture with the colloquial judgments about the importance of courage and the
disapproval of fear.