For some, it will be a discovery that the Russian word "kid" is a thug and comes from the domestic criminal environment. It appeared during the time of the Russian Empire, was used throughout the 20th century and has quite successfully survived to this day. This word got into the official dictionaries after the Great Patriotic War. What does it really mean and where do its roots come from?
As is very often the case in linguistics, the Russian word "kid" has foreign roots, namely, Jewish. The most popular and at the same time plausible version tells us that it comes from the Hebrew "poz", which translated from Yiddish means "male dignity" (in physiological terms). Together with the Hebrew “san”, a derogatory expression was obtained, which could be translated into Russian as “small [a word of three letters]”.
Initially, the expression was used among the common people among the Jews to refer to young boys, males who had not reached puberty - marriageable age. From the common people, the expression naturally fell into the criminal environment. It is reliably known that the word "boy" appears in thieves' circles no later than the middle of the 19th century.
Initially, the Hebrew expression got into the Russian language and naturally transformed into a well-known word to everyone. The borrowing was mainly due to the criminal element of the Russian Empire, which naturally brewed in the poorest strata of society. There were especially many Jewish bandits at that time, due to the fact that in pre-revolutionary Russia (as in everything the rest of the world, in fact), quite harsh anti-Semitic morals reigned and Jews often found themselves at the very bottom society.
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The peak of popularity of the word "boy" came in the first decades of the 20th century, when the situation with street children in the empire became seriously complicated. At the same time, in criminal circles, juvenile criminals, as well as young and lower members of organized criminal groups, began to be called "boys".
After the 1917 revolution, homelessness was defeated thanks to the program of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, one of the founders of the Cheka (the future NKVD). A huge number of children from the street ended up in state orphanages, where they were able to receive education and proper upbringing.
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Although most of them were re-educated and were able to get a ticket to a previously inaccessible normal life, the word "boy" remained with yesterday's youngsters in colloquial speech and for the second time migrated to people. At the same time, the pejorative coloring was smoothed out and the word began to be rather neutral and even positive outside the thieves' community.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about phrases that should not be said to loved onesso as not to spoil the relationship.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/090820/55614/