The phraseological units characterizing a reliable and unreliable person are analyzed. The material was selected by the criterion of the presence in the definition or in the context of the environment of words reliable or unreliable and related words. The technique of revealing the motivational attributes of different levels is presented according to the criterion of various degrees of abstractness from the figurative embodiment: private motives, cross-cutting motives and motivational dominants. On the basis of the motivational analysis of the phraseological material portraits-meta-descriptions are composed, which include cross-cutting motives: reliable - this is someone who can delegate other people’s difficulties; who is able to protect; who is able to act for another; who belongs to his circle; unreliable - this is someone who cannot delegate other people’s difficulties; who is changeable; who is incapable of acting for the other (cooperate); who is double-natured (double-faced); who cannot protect; who betrays. The author believes that words reliable and unreliable can be regarded as interpretative in the sense in which Yu. D. Apresyan interprets verbs to harm, to sin, to abuse, to punish, to whitewash, to support , etc. The idea is that the revealed cross-cutting motives in this case objectify the content of the concepts “reliable” and “unreliable”, which is hidden behind the definitional semantics “one who you can rely on”.