The cultural life of Europe at the beginning of the XIX century was marked by the appearance of a new type of dandies-English dandies, who became real trendsetters. According to R. K. Barnhart's etymological dictionary, the word dandy appeared in Scotland around the 1780s, and became fashionable in London in 1813-1819 (The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology / ed. By Robert K. Barnhart, Wilson, 1988, p. 251). This fashionable English word instantly penetrated many European languages. Apparently, the first person who introduced the Russian reader to this word was the famous translator of the XIX century S. S. de Chaplet-the author of translations of the works of the French describer of morals Victor Jouy, popular at the beginning of the XIX century, whose book "The London Hermit, or A Description of the mores and customs of the English at the beginning of the XIX century" began to be published in Russian in 1822. When describing the upper class, V. Rui spoke about two types of English dandies, one of which - fascionebly-is admired by the author, and about the other type of English dandies he spoke with a clear sense of disdain, seeing in them the result of damage to morals: page 95 "In all the streets, in all the public places, you meet creatures that do not look like men, women, or monkeys, but who seem to combine the distinctive features of the three genera. In my day, they didn't even know what a dandy was. We also had dandies, but they were dressed in rich brocade, velvet and gold-embroidered dresses, with swords, as befits a well-born person." It is interesting here that when transmitting the English word dandy, Chaplet used the grammatical form of dandy, which suggests the possibility of declension of the word (cf.genius, Eugene), however, despite the popularity of the book by Victor Zhui (again reprinted in 1828), this form did not take root. In this regard, one cannot unconditionally agree with the opinion of L. P. Grossman that A. S. Pushkin introduced this wor ... Read more