The CBB

There's a Jewish-Russian song from Belorussian Jews in the Russian Language, called Nie Zhurites', who's first words are "Не журитесь, хлопцы,""Nie zhurites' khloptzy" translated as "don't worry, fellows". I have been unable to find a source for the word <журитесь> zhurites', anywhere online, and I have an older friend whose wife is a Professor of Russian in various colleges in the Philly area, and she was stumped (she has a Masters in Russian Studies, focused on Language), saying it sounds like an antiquated word, especially given the presence of <хлопцы> "Khloptzy", which is old-fashioned in Russian (the Polish cognate is very active in that language), and suggested it might be of West Slavic, particularly Polish, but no luck on a cognate there, plus I had a Polish classmate last semester who said she'd never heard of that word. Maybe a Baltic origin, but the closest I could find was Latvian <jāuztraucas>, especially since sources of the song )With no Cyrillic lyrics) have the romanization "Zhuritze" or "Zhuritze", but that would be a twisted path, IMO. Anybody know anything?

According to Wiktionary, it seems to be a Common Slavic word (although it's further origins are unclear - it's accent paradigm suggests a denominative verb, so I think Wiktionary's comparison with Sanskrit ghorá "terrible" is reasonable) - it's probably become obsolete in Russian.

It's still used in Croatian, but here it means "to hurry" - I can see how the two meanings could be related, since one often hurries when one's worried (if the comparison with Sanskrit is correct, then "to worry" would have to be the earlier meaning).

The Russian Wiktionary (Wikislovo) says it now means "To scold", and gives a quote from Chekhov (does no more recent ones mean it is old-fashioned even in the new meaning?) Wiktionary itself lists the Belorussian cognate as "Zhuritssi", which means that the versions with "Zhuritze" probably a reflect Belorussianizing dialect, which makes sense, as it's from Belarus, but when it was part of Imperial Russia, during a period where the Tsar illegalized Belorussian literature, and Belorussian in education, so Native Yiddish speakers, probably used a Belorussian-Russian mix as there language for communicating with Slavs.

Hmmm… IMHO the Wiktionary definition for жури́ти was probably written by a Russo-ukrainian.

I consulted the following:
Andrusyshen & Krett, Ukrainian-English Dictionary
Niniws'kyi, Ukrainian-English & English Ukrainian Dictionary
Andrashko, Burbelo, et al., Dictionnaire français-ukrainien & ukrainien-français (nouvelle edition)
Wichorek, Martha, Ukrainian Grammar for Beginners

and none have "to hurry" in any part of their definitions for жури́ти(cя).
They all mean 'to fret', 'to grieve', 'to worry', 'to be concerned/anxious/preoccupied'.

Nonetheless, I can certainly understand how hurry and worry can be related.
You busy/preoccupy your thoughts about someone/thing, or your mind races about a person or thing; that's certainly a small step towards worrying about them.

Makes me think of the (unrelated) word cura.

Nonetheless, in the sources I have, none give neither defs nor usages as 'to hurry' nor 'to rush'.