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Today a reddit user claimed that "холодос" (I guess the last "o" is stressed) is a slang name for a refrigerator in Russian, and I'm like - no way, never in my life I've heard this before. However googling quickly showed that this word does indeed exist, very much to my surprise.

My question is: how old is this word, is is something relatively new or actually was used, say in seventies, and what is its geographical distribution - is it used throughout the Russia or does it belong to some narrower context.

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    I hear this word daily (really not but I could) because one of my children is teenager. I'm not sure about geographical distribution, but I'm sure it is widely used in internet (YouTube, TikTok, song lyrics etc) and thus cannot be narrowed geographically. And you are right, the last о is stressed.
    – Dmitry ♦
    May 19, 2020 at 1:26
  • I read this word first time here at russian.stackexchange.com, so it is probably very new.
    – user31264
    May 19, 2020 at 14:49

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This word is popular among teenagers. Adults don’t say that (or very rarely).

It’s very easy to come up with a new word in Russian, so it’s hard to say if the word "холодос" was in the 70s. But you can be sure that even then it would be clear that we are talking about the refrigerator.

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    I've never heard the word before, I should say the meaning of the word is not that clear and obvious. When I saw it for the first time, in the title of this question, I'd bet its meaning is "cold weather".
    – Yellow Sky
    May 18, 2020 at 15:23
  • @YellowSky I tought so, but then I saw the stress on the last O, so it is a bit personified. Weather cannot be.
    – fraxinus
    May 18, 2020 at 16:43
  • @fraxinus, yes, if you hear the "холодос" for the first time, you need context :"Закинь сок в холодос (put the juice in the refregerator)." Also, you can say "На улице холодос", which will mean that the weather is cold.
    – Vik Williams
    May 20, 2020 at 5:43
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Changing words by adding "-ос" to them is popular in teenage gopnik subculture in Russia (something like US white trash I think) Widespread examples are бандос from бандит, bandit and девятос from девятка, VAZ2109 car, and досвидос from до свиданья, good bye.

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  • well, all those are valid examples, I'm not sure about them being pure gopnick slang (or even originated exactly in a gopnick community - for instance, лавандос as far as I know was a hippie slang). Still never heard "холодос" )
    – shabunc ♦
    May 18, 2020 at 23:48
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    @shabunc - Was it hippie or not, but лавандос is from the Romani лов / ловэ́ "money" that was popular in the criminal slang, and that -óc suffix is very much like the Romani suffix -мо́с "-hood / -ship", a productiv suffix for making abstract nouns. ))
    – Yellow Sky
    May 19, 2020 at 14:47

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