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Comment by richardknop | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure about that? I know Google Translate says "vlast" but I speak a Slavic language and "vlast" means motherhood/home in my language. Could be just the online translation not being accurate?

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Tons of "false friends" between Slavic languages. E.g. "urod" could mean "beauty" in some and "freak" in others. In Russian "sila" means primarily "force" or "strength" and in the context of "siloviki" it refers to the armed forces and law enforcement as the top of this thread states.

> Google Translate

Thanks for the laugh. An automated translation tools, especially dumbed down online ones, never work right because they don't have a context or a means to provide it.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B0#Russ...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%8...

In Polish, Sila is strength as well.

Technically (physically) it's force (as in SI's F).

Oh that makes sense! I'm thinking back to how people say "On jest silny" as in "He is strong" I wouldn't say "He is force"

Mind you, you changed 'strength' (noun) to 'strong' (adj) in your example.

"He is forceful" if you insist on playing this game. Another derived adjective if forcible but it has a bit more elusive meaning (forcible entry into a building)

He's right, for the most part. I think the Czech cognate would be vláda, with a somewhat closer meaning.

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