Роучька, Роучьница ‘containerʼ

This article considers the Church Slavonic words роучька, роучьница in the meaning of a “container”, found in the Theotokion of January menaion Роучьницю тя манноу сътяжавшю. The paper contains a full text of the troparion according to the January menaion of the 12th century from the collection of the State Historical Museum of Sin. 163, as well as the corresponding original Greek Theotokion and the recent Church Slavonic translation. There is an analysis of the words representation features in the modern and historical dictionaries of the Russian language, as well as in the different dictionaries of the Bulgarian language in the article. It is pointed out that the origins of the Slavic nomination should be found in the structure of the Greek stamnos — a container with a wide neck and horizontally positioned handles. It is concluded that the word роучьница was derived from the masculine noun роучьникъ as an epithet of the Virgin Mary, and роучька is a kind of the metonymic transfer — the synecdoche