Wyraz fant i jego rodzina w dawnej i współczesnej polszczyźnie
The word fant and its family in the old and contemporary Polish language

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of dictionaries, the expansion of the word's meaning has been traced: tableware (attested since the end of the 15th century), valuables (since the 16th century), personal belongings (since the 17th century), games and entertainment (since the 18th century), public events (since the 19th century), and finally theft (since the 20th century). In the light of the textual data (National Corpus of Polish), extended definitions of contemporary fant in the domain of games and entertainment and in the domain of public events have been proposed. Outside the criminal jargons, the word is poorly attested in the social varieties of the language. Instead, in a variety of meanings - fundamentally different from those known in general Polish, with unclear origin - it is known from dialects, especially Silesian dialects. fant in the etymological sense (tableware) (fantować (się), fantowan(y), fantowanie (się), fantownia, fantownik/ fanciarz, fanciarka, fanciarstwo, fanciarski, fantowe) was characterised by the highest word-formation productivity.

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