The meaning of the phraseology "to pound water in a mortar", origin and examples

A lot in life is meaningless, so proverbs, sayings and all sorts of suggestions that reflect the futility of being, too , is enough. Let's talk about one of them today: the importance of phraseology "to pound water in a mortar" in the focus of this article.

The proverb "Water in the mortar is pounding - water and will be"

One of the ways of forming phraseological units is extremely simple: they arise on the ruins of proverbs and sayings. This is the case. The proverb, which is placed in the subtitle, dying, gave life to the expression "to pound the water in a mortar". According to sources, this phrase is very ancient and has analogues in different languages. Known it was still in antiquity.

By the way, for your information: a stupa is a clay or metal container, intended for grinding something. Of course, lovers of fairy tales immediately remembered Baba-Yaga and her flying machine, but the usual stupa is small.

This is the rich and ancient origin of the saying, familiar from childhood. Consider the meaning of phraseology "to pound water in a mortar".

Meaning

It is not difficult to understand that this is a deliberately meaningless occupation that does not and can not have any result. We can easily choose a more universal analogue of this activity - it is Sisyphean labor. By the way, Sisyphus the gods punished for his ingenuity and forced to engage in the afterlife a useless thing. The meaning of the phraseology "to pound water in a mortar" has not only a figurative meaning, but also a direct one: the monks were punished for their faults.

Useful and harmful activities

Of course, everyone can give some definition of life-saturated or empty human existence. But the thing is that diving into a thoughtless existence, a person rests (especially in our crazy time). But when it comes to a schoolboy or a child, and he can not yet tell the difference between good and bad, you can talk about wasting time.

For example, a schoolboy instead of reading books or preparing homework watches cartoons or plays video games. What does he do? The meaning of phraseology "to pound water in a mortar" is quite suitable for describing his studies. As the classic wrote: "The soul must work day and night, and day and night."

But sometimes you still need to rest.

Results

"Water in the mortar to pound" - the meaning of phraseology implies aimless labor, which has neither personal nor public benefit. Expression in itself contains some moral condemnation of meaningless work and a hint that it is necessary to be engaged in what will bring the result.