Who and what is the toad strangling for?

The phraseology "toad strangling" is considered quite young and presumably appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. So they say about the feeling of envy, but more often about greed. What kind of a frog is this that crushes and suffocates?

Meet the Toad

The very word "toad" has more than one meaning. First of all, this tailless amphibian, and according to Dal's dictionary, it is still warty and smelly. Also, according to the explanatory dictionary of V. Dalya, a toad is an evil woman, an evil child, a pesky person. In addition, this is the usual name for some diseases. Virtually every meaning of the word "toad" can be considered the source of the expression of this expression, especially a pesky person or an evil woman who really psychologically presses and strangles their behavior, but other versions are more plausible and logical.

Medical Toad

The expression "toad suffocates" as a synonym for avarice, greed and envy has appeared recently, but as a symptom of the disease there are more than one century and is associated with angina. Earlier, the disease was called stenos kardia, the literal translation from Greek sounds like a "narrow" or "close heart", later the disease was given the Latin name angina pectoris - "squeeze" or "choke the chest," and in Russia it was simply called "angina pectoris." This name of the disease is associated with its main symptom - pressing and compressive pain in the heart. A person has a feeling that he has a huge toad on his chest. There are several reasons for angina pectoris, and not the last place among them is occupied by nervous tension, emotions, mental burden, which, in turn, can arise from a strong reluctance to share something, give something away. This is especially true of financial relations.

Also in medicine there is another "toad" - a throat, or just a sore throat. Symptoms of angina are closer to a feeling of squeezing, tightening of the throat, and the throat itself looks like a toad - the inflamed tonsils with white blisters are very much like the swollen cheeks of a toad, and there is a feeling that the person is really suffocating the toad. The meaning of this expression in this case acquires a practically direct meaning.

Witches and wizards

From fairy tales and legends we know that the toad is very loved by witches, fortune-tellers, sorcerers and is used by them for conspiracies and damage, including those who are richer and more successful, who are envious. These amphibians became an ingredient of the Potok's potions, which bring illnesses or death. According to the beliefs, the witches could turn into toads or call them the enemy's name and kill the unfortunate, after some time the enemy himself died. Using toads in their potions, conspiracies, turning into them, witches and sorcerers killed, choked, inflicted irreparable harm to man. We can assume that the statement "the toad strangles" came to us along with legends and beliefs about witches.

Jabot and the frog

Some sources suggest that the expression "toad presses" appeared as a result of consonance with certain words. Jabot - a frill around the collar of a man's shirt. With the passage of time, the toad changed and in the 19th century acquired a strange and very uncomfortable form: it lifted its cheeks and squeezed its throat. It is assumed that the statement "the fries strangles, presses" subsequently began to sound like "the toad strangles." There is also a version that the word "toad" is in tune with the word "jabot". The jibot, according to the etymological dictionary, means cares, work that can not be avoided anywhere. A lot of trunks, a throat chokes, presses. Perhaps in Russian speech the pressing jabots soon turned into a toad that suffocates.

An important toad

"The toad strangles": where the expression really takes its roots, one can only guess. In literature there are still many versions of its origin. The pressing toad can be associated with the direction of feng shui, where it is considered a symbol of wealth, well-being and importantly sits on the money. So the stingy man sits on his hard earned money, and, unlike the money frog, is not going to share with anyone, his toad presses. Regardless of how plausible the version of the appearance of this phrase is, the pressing greed has won such popularity that it was awarded a mention in modern folklore and cast in bronze. The monument to the most miserly frog is set in Berdyansk (Ukraine). It is important to sit on four heads - male, female, child and on the head of an old man, in the clutches of her two phones and a bundle of money. Bronze sculpture without words conveys the whole meaning of the expression "toad suffocates" - greed is inherent in a person of any age and any social status.

And this is not the only monument to the toad, personifying envy and greed - vices, from which drugs will never be invented.