У статті розглянуто фразеологічні одиниці, до складу яких входять компоненти, що є назвами земноводних і плазунів. Показано вплив символіки компонента на семантику фразеологізму загалом. У творенні мовної картини світу фразеологічні одиниці з зоокомпонентами є чи не найбагатшою і найрозмаїтішою серед груп фразеологічного фонду мови, адже багатовікові спостереження за поведінкою тварин і перенесення рис їхньої поведінки на людину є культурно-інформаційним дороговказом розуміння психології людської поведінки.
Language is formed in a certain culture, in a certain tradition. In this case, language is the clearest expression of our psyche, of our mental self. But the language – this is also a living organism, a system in which all the units are interconnected. And in this organism, in this system, perhaps the most essential in terms of studying the peculiarities of Ukrainian national life, national traditions and customs, characteristic features of the mental state, human behavior as a carrier of a national character, national mentality are phraseological units, especially those that include components names of animals. Frazologologists with the component of a frog and spit (viper) are the most active. All of them, practically, are the bearers of negative connotations. Only one phraseological unit from the group that we investigated is positively painted. Every nation has its own idea of the linguistic picture of the world. The experience of the ethnos is preserved and reproduced in a living language in the form of phraseologisms, images of folklore, symbols, etc. Language pictures of the world of different nations differ in those values, which are recorded in language formulas, among which the most relevant are phraseologisms. In the creation of the linguistic picture of the world, the phraseological units with zooproducts are perhaps the richest and most diverse among the groups of phraseological units of the phraseological fund of language, since centuries-old observation of the behavior of animals and the transfer of the traits of their behavior to man is the cultural and informational guide for understanding the psychology of human behavior.
