It is very strange in the modern world, where even communication is reduced to the use of abbreviations and acronyms, to hear some old Russian name or a beautiful, but completely incomprehensible word. If for children of the twenty-first century the word "class", uttered with different intonations, can express delight, discontent, approval and even sympathy, then for people who lived even at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was more than one word that described all these emotions in a sufficiently colorful way.
What is delight?
The poems of the Russian classics of the nineteenth century are full of intricate comparisons with which the poets described their muses. One such word is "delight." This is pleasure, pleasure.
We find its roots in the Old Russian language, but initially it had a completely opposite meaning. Today's meaning of the word "delight" is something close to the concepts of "sweet", "sweetness", "pleasure", etc. In the Slavic dialect, it meant "salty, spicy." Over time, having migrated to other languages, it received an interpretation close to the modern original.
Daily use
If you think about it, the word "delight" is not the noun that was often used in everyday life even in the last century. Rather, it was related to a more intimate expression of emotions, attitude and personal perception of the speaker.
This could be an appeal to a loved one ("delight of my eyes"). So they could talk about a certain type of activity:
And even you, my verse,
You my windy friend, delight my days
You will not give the soul of your dreams.
A. Maykov
Most often, this saying was used by playwrights. In their works, the masters of the pen use it in the sense of extreme degree of pleasure, pleasure. Sometimes you can see it as a reference to someone or something that gives joy.
