Fun with dictionaries

Looking up one word in the dictionary can lead you in all kinds of directions. Here's one quite arbitrary journey I took today...

vasitə 

The sentence in a news item was "tort vasitəsilə istefaya çağırılıb". Some artistic types call for a resignation by means of a cake.  OK, must be a slow news day. But, this is an interesting and useful word. Let's see where it takes us.


vasitə - means

ex: mümkün olan bütün vasitələrlə - by all possible means, by every means (that is, whatever it takes)

vasitəsilə - by means of
ex: köməkçi fel vasitəsilə - by means of an auxiliary verb

ünsiyyət vasitəsi - communicative means
ex: Dil insanlar arasında ünsiyyət vasitəsidir. - Language is a means of communication between people.

So it makes sense that a negotiator or go-between is a vasitəçi and that mediation is vasitəçilik and that the verb to mediate is vasitəcilik etmək. To be a go-between is vasitəçi olmaq.

Not so obvious is that vasitəli means "indirect". And thus it follows that vasitəsiz means "direct". It seems this is used in grammar for indirect (reported) and direct speech (nitq). Also for direct and indirect objects (tamamlıq). Not sure if it can be used in other ways, such as an indirect route. But then I get another possibility. I ask Dilmanc to translate indirect speech and it gives me dolayı nitq.

dolayı - indirect, roundabout
ex: dolayı yol - and indirect route, a roundabout way; dolayı cavab - an indirect answer

You can say Mən bu xəbəri dolayı eşitdim. - I heard this indirectly.

It seems that words beginning with dola have the sense of "winding" or "going around". Thus dolama is winding, as in dolama cığır (winding path), dolama pilləkan (winding stairs). The verb dolamaq means "to wind". You can put your arms around someone's neck - qollarını boynuna dolamaq  or you can wind a towel around your neck - dəsmalı boynuna dolamaq. The ivy twined around the tree - Sarmaşıq ağaca dolandı. It has the metaphorical meaning of fooling someone - bir kəsi dolamaq.

Other words:
dolama-dolama - in a zigzaq
dolanacaq - life
dolandırılmaq - to be turned, rotated
dolandırmaq - to turn, to rotate; also to take care of someone, to support with money
dolanma - rotation, revolution, going around, spinning around; also living
dolaşdırılmaq - to be entangled
dolaşdırmaq - to entangle
dolaş-dolaş - entangled
dolaşıq - confusion, confused, confusedly
dolaşıqlı - confusedly

Confused yet? Then the eye falls upon dolça - a watering can and other words with dol which have to do with filling up.