Semantic and word formation study: разгильдяй

The article shows how etymological, semantic and derivational analysis helps to establish the word-formation structure of a given word (as an object of the historical dictionary of Old Russian) and to determine its meaning. The author cites various points of view on the meaning and the morphological structure of the studied word from historical dictionaries and other materials and formulates her own considerations regarding its origin. Considering the impressive derivational nest with the root гил’, reflected in the Dictionary of the 11^th-17^th centuries Russian language and other materials (гиль ‘distemper, rebellion, riot, crowd’, гилевати, гилеванье, гилевство, гилевщик, гилянство, гильщик, гилить, изгиляться, etc.), the author is inclined to believe that razgild’ay is a kind of confixal derivative: prefix раз- + root гил’- + epenthesis -д’- +suffix -ай (-яй). The infixed -д’- is interpreted as an epenthesis.