The linguistic explication of the feeling of fear in the Russian language

The article is an attempt to present the linguistic explication of the feeling of fear in the Russian language. As it was proved by the linguistic data, the lexeme ‘fear’ (‘страх’) has several synonyms with different semantic value, such as ‘тревога’, ‘ужас’, ‘паника’. The feeling itself can be caused by real or irrational circumstances treated or estimated by the subject as threat. The paper analyses the expressions, phraseologisms and proverbs related to the feeling of fear. They present how the word ‘fear’ (‘страх’) is used in the language and on its semantic level. What is more, the phraseologisms prove that the majority of physical symptoms of the feeling ‘fear’ obtain their linguistic explication. Proverbs complete the received picture with the colloquial judgments about the importance of courage and the disapproval of fear