“the deadly potion of hypothecs!”: history of the word ipoteka / hypotheca in the Russian language

The article considers the history of borrowing of the word ipoteka and its fate in Russian language. The word came from Greek language and it`s among the borrowing words with element -teka: vinoteka, videoteka, kartoteka, filmoteka, daktiloteka and others. Appearing in Russian, apparently in the XVIII century with the following meanings: 1. Real estate mortgage for the loan. 2. Money loan, issued secured by real estate, the word ipoteka in a poetic text (an ode by Soviet poet Mark Tarlovsky) acts in an unexpected context requiring additional referencing of the source language. The analysis suggests the occurrence of ambiguity of the lexeme`s meaning already in Greek language, which was the consequence of the development of the original meaning of the verb, which was formed from the word mortgage. It concludes that, as a polysemantic in Greek, the word ipoteka in Russian language implements both direct and figurative meanings, as evidenced by the use of the lexeme in the poetic text.