When is a gate not a gate?

In a Russian lesson I did yesterday, I learnt that a word for gate is ворота (vorota). Then it gave me a phrase using a different word for gate – Где гейт? (Gde gejt?), which means “Where is the gate?”, and refers to the kind of gate you get at an airport. Slightly confusing. So I wondered what kind of gate is a ворота.

Apparently a ворота is a (double) gate, gateway, portal, goal or sluicegate.

Other Russian words for gate include:

  • выход (vychod) = egress, exit, gate, orifice, outcome
  • вход (vchod) = embouchure, entrance, entry, gate, gateway, ingress, inlet
  • шлагбаум (shlagbaum) = gate (of lock, level crossing), tollbar
  • калитка (kalitka) = (single) gate, wicket
  • шлюз (shlyuz) = flood-gate, gate, lock, sluice
  • гейт (gejt) = gate (at an airport)

Below are some illustrations on different kinds of gates I found via Google:

Some different kinds of gates and the words for them in Russian

Searching for images of words like this seems is interesting, and may help me to remember them.

Sources: Reverso Dictionary & bab.la

6 thoughts on “When is a gate not a gate?

  1. I wonder if it is a phonetic adaptation of the English “gate”, simply narrowly referencing a gate at an airport. It’s lack of presence in dictionaries seems to indicate a relatively new word.

  2. It should probably say гейт which I would assume comes from English. [ru-Wiktionary]

    The title of this blog post reminded of the film The Forbidden Kingdom in which Jackie Chan’s character says “No, where you come from is the dream, through the gate of no gate.”

  3. Shlagbaum (шлагбаум) and shlyuz (шлюз) seem to be German loans (Schlagbaum and Schleuse, respectively).

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