cudzej

Cudzej is a historical or dialectal form found in Polish that represents a possessive-like modifier meaning “belonging to someone else” or “other people’s.” It is encountered mainly in older texts and in certain regional varieties, rather than in contemporary standard Polish. In modern usage, the common forms of the possessive determiner relate to cudzy (masculine), cudza (feminine), and cudze (neuter), with the genitive plural cudzych; cudzej appears primarily as an archaic or irregular inflectional variant rather than a productive part of the current language.

Etymology and relation to related forms: cudzej is derived from the same root as cudzy, which is connected to the broader Slavic family of words meaning “foreign” or “belonging to another.” It shares semantic kinship with cognates such as the Russian chuzhoy (чужой) and other forms across Slavic languages that express outsider status or possession by another. The form cudzej is typically described in linguistic sources as an older or nonstandard inflection, retained in certain texts for historical or regional reasons.

Usage and status: Today, cudzej is generally not part of standard, contemporary Polish grammar. It is cited mainly in discussions of historical language, regional dialects, or philological study of old documents. When encountered in literature, it is usually understood as reflecting earlier usage or a nonstandard variant rather than a living pronunciation in mainstream speech.

See also: cudzy, cudze, cudzoziemski, чужой.