podoby

Podoby is a term in Czech and Slovak meaning form, appearance, variant, or likeness. The plural podoby corresponds to the singular podoba. The word is used across contexts to denote the various manifestations or versions of something, from a physical appearance to stylistic or conceptual forms.

In linguistics and grammar, podoba refers to the form a word or expression takes in different grammatical contexts, i.e., its morphological variants. In broader usage, podoby can denote different appearances or representations of things, such as forms of art, variants of a tradition, or different editions of a text. The term emphasizes diversity of expression within a single underlying concept.

Cultural and intellectual discourse often employs podoby to discuss plural manifestations of ideas, phenomena, or practices. For example, one might speak of the podoby lidové hudby (forms or variants of folk music) or the podoby vyprávění (forms of storytelling). In everyday language, podoba can simply mean someone’s appearance or the visible form of an object, while podoby captures the idea that there are multiple possible representations.

Etymologically, podoby derives from podoba, a basic Slavic root meaning likeness or form. The term is entrenched in everyday Czech and Slovak vocabulary and appears in scholarly and literary contexts to convey the concept of multiple forms or manifestations.

See also: form, shape, appearance, variant, likeness.