1,068 sourced Persian entries: grammar, slang, idioms, and the political vocabulary nobody else publishes. Open the glossary →

Arabic

ادب کردن

adab-kardan does not mean to be polite. It means to discipline, often a child, sometimes with force. The word has a hard edge.

تواضع

tavazo is the Arabic word for humility, the gracious lowering of oneself in the presence of others. Its Persian-rooted twin is forutani.

غرور

ghorour means pride, but the same word covers honest pride in your country and toxic arrogance toward your neighbor. Context decides.

کنایه

kenayeh is the Persian rhetorical device of allusion or irony, where the literal sense holds but a figurative reading is intended.

استعاره

este-areh is the Persian term for metaphor, the literary device that names one thing by another via implicit comparison.

ضرب‌المثل

zarbolmasal is the Persian meta-word for proverb, the term you reach for when you want to talk about proverbs as a category.

سیاسی

siasi means political in Persian, the -i adjective from siasat (politics), the partner term to ejtemai in journalism and public discourse.

اجتماعی

ejtemai means social in Persian, the -i adjective formed from ejtema (society, gathering), one half of the ejtemai-siasi pair common in journalism.

فیلسوف

filsuf means philosopher in Persian, the Greek philosophos routed through Arabic faylasuf, the word used for Avicenna and Mulla Sadra.

فلسفه

falsafe is philosophy, the Greek discipline that traveled through Arabic into Persian and built one of the great intellectual traditions of the Islamic world.

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