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  What it means

  “Foul weather on the feast of Adam and Eve — protect your boot-tops from the cold.” If it rains or sleets on 24 December (Adam and Eve’s day in the Polish calendar), expect a cold winter ahead, so keep your boots warm.

  Vocabulary

  • słota — foul wet weather, sleet
  • cholewа — boot-top, leg of a boot
  • zabezpieczyć — to protect, to secure

  Grammar note

  'Zabezpiecz' is the imperative singular of 'zabezpieczyć'. 'Od zimna' uses the genitive after 'od' (from/against).

  Cultural context

  In the Polish folk calendar, 24 December is the feast of Adam and Eve as well as Christmas Eve. Such proverbs linked saints' days to weather forecasting.

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