ادب کردن

What it means

ادب کردن (adab-kardan) is one of the most easily misread compound verbs in Persian. The noun ادب (adab) means manners, good behavior, courtesy. So the verb looks like it should mean to be polite. It does not. ادب کردن means to discipline someone, to correct them, often forcibly. Parents say it about children. Bosses say it about employees they have publicly humiliated. It carries a hard edge.

The semantic logic is: to do adab to someone means to make them mannered, to install manners in them, by whatever means the speaker thinks the situation requires. That can mean a lecture, a scolding, a slap, a beating. The word does not specify, but the implication leans punitive.

Compound verb structure

This is a noun-plus-verb compound, one of the most productive grammar patterns in Persian. ادب (adab, the noun, the abstract quality of being well-mannered) plus کردن (kardan, the light verb meaning to do/make). The light verb carries the tense and person; the noun supplies the meaning. The literal reading is “to do manners on someone,” which Persian renders as “to discipline.”

The pattern is everywhere: kar-kardan (to do work, to work), kumak-kardan (to do help, to help), sohbat-kardan (to do talk, to talk). Adab-kardan follows the same grammar but lands in a darker semantic place.

The honest read

Modern Iranian readers, especially younger ones, hear adab-kardan critically. A parent who says bayad in bachcheh-ra adab kard (this child has to be disciplined) is announcing an intent to punish. The phrase is rarer than it used to be, but it has not vanished. Iranian child-rearing has moved away from corporal punishment in many homes; in others, the old verb is still alive.

The site documents the word because it exists. We do not endorse the practice it names. Real Persian includes hard verbs.

Examples

pedar mikhad bachcheh-ash-o adab koneh.

The father wants to discipline his child.

پدر می‌خواد بچه‌اش‌و ادب کنه.

ye bar adabesh kardam, dige in kar-ra nakard.

Once I disciplined him, and he didn’t do it again.

یه بار ادبش کردم، دیگه این کار را نکرد.

What it is not

Adab-kardan is not the verb for “to be polite” or “to act with manners.” For that, Persian uses ba adab budan (to be with manners), riayat-e adab kardan (to observe manners), or ba edab raftar kardan (to behave with manners). Mixing these up will produce a sentence that means the opposite of what you intended.

In our voice

Watch this verb. It looks gentle and is not. When a Persian speaker uses adab-kardan about a person, they are talking about correction, not courtesy. Hear the edge.

References

• Dehkhoda, ادب
• Vajehyab, ادب کردن