O szabrze (glosa porządkująca rozważania językoznawcze)
On szaber (a Gloss on the Linguistic Considerations)

Summary/Abstract: The subject of the text is a lexicological and semantic consideration of the lexeme szaber. The article is a study of the history of language. The word szaber became particularly popular in Polish during World War II. Its provenance is not entirely clear; the source of the word’s meaning in post-war Polish is also not obvious. The article presents the existing theories related to the etymology of the lexeme, which can be encountered in Germanic and Polish studies. A supplemented opinion on the presence of the word in Polish is presented and the semantic evolution of the word and its derivatives is described. Undoubtedly, the word szaber has German etymology. In Polish jargon, the term initially appeared as the name for a tool used by thieves (← German Schaber). However, it is unclear whether German criminals, when incorporating the word into their language, derived it from schaben (in which case neo-semantization is involved, adapting the word’s meaning to the realities of the criminal world), or if they drew from a noun present in Yiddish – shab(b)er [ רעבאַש ] ‘crowbar, breaking in’ (in which case we should speak of borrowing). The second theory seems closer to the truth. Nevertheless, szaber as a term for theft appeared secondarily in Polish sociolect – as a result of retroactive derivation: szaber ‘theft, robbery’ (= szabrowanie) ← szabrować ‘to break in, to rob’ ← szaber ‘thieving tool: crowbar, knife, pick’. The resulting Polish term szaber became the basis for a semantic shift influenced by wartime and occupation realities – the word began to be used as a term for taking over someone’s belongings left behind due to evacuation, displacement, etc. After the war, with the advent of socialist reality, the word began to refer to the appropriation of citizens’ property by state organs and institutions, the seizure of someone else’s property under the guise of legal actions. Today, colloquially, szaber refers to theft in general.

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