What it means
آمار (âmâr) means “statistics,” “data,” or “census,” depending on context. It is a native Persian word related to شمار (shomâr), meaning “count” or “tally,” making it genuinely native rather than a borrowing. In everyday speech, âmâr can mean any set of figures or numbers, from government population data to a friend quoting how many times something happened. A close synonym is داده (dâde), meaning “data,” though âmâr carries a stronger sense of compiled or official counts.
How to use it
- آمار جمعیت ایران چقدره؟ (âmâr-e jam’iyat-e Irân cheqadre?) “What is the population statistic of Iran?”
- آمار بدی داری از این موضوع؟ (âmâr badi dâri az in mozu’?) “Do you have any data on this topic?”
- آمار تصادفات بالا رفته. (âmâr-e tasâdofât bâlâ rafte.) “Accident statistics have gone up.”
- سر آمار داریم درس میخونیم. (sar-e âmâr dârim dars mikhânim.) “We are studying statistics right now.”
Cultural note
Iran’s national statistics agency is called مرکز آمار ایران (Markaz-e Âmâr-e Irân), literally the Center of Statistics of Iran, and it conducts the national census (سرشماری, sarshomâri). The word âmâr appears in news broadcasts and official reports daily, and Iranians use it casually to mean any quoted figure, such as “what are the stats on that?” The subject is also taught as a formal discipline called درس آمار (dars-e âmâr) in high schools and universities across Iran.