برگ

برگ‌ریزان (barg-rizân, "the falling of leaves") is a poetic name for autumn that older Iranians still use, and it carries a tone of beautiful melancholy that you do not get from the calendrical word پاییز. The image of the falling leaf as the passing of life is everywhere in Persian poetry, from Hafez through modern lyric. On the bureaucratic side, برگ سبز is the green vehicle ownership card every Iranian driver knows: lose it and you cannot legally sell your car. The word's ability to hold leaf, page, and card at once makes it a small lesson in how Persian builds meaning by image rather than category. There is also a Tehrani figure of speech: کسی که از برگ گل لطیف‌تره (kasi ke az barg-e gol latiftar-e, "someone more delicate than a flower-leaf"), used affectionately for a sensitive friend or a child. And in card-game slang, برگ آخر (barg-e âkhar, "the last card") means the final play, the move you have been holding back, the same metaphor English uses with "trump card."