بلاک کردن

What it means

بلاک کردن (block-kardan) means to block someone on a social platform: cutting them off from your account, your DMs, your stories. The verb covers Instagram, X, Telegram, WhatsApp, and any app where blocking is a feature. It is sharper than آنفالو کردن (unfollow-kardan) because it is bilateral, the blocked person cannot see you either, and the visibility of the act is total.

The register is colloquial. The act is loaded.

Compound verb structure

بلاک کردن is a standard Persian compound verb: the English-rooted noun بلاک (block) plus the native light verb کردن (kardan, to do). The noun stays invariant; کردن carries all conjugation. Persian absorbed the verb without modification because the native alternatives (سد کردن, مسدود کردن) felt either bureaucratic or technical for a casual social-media act.

• Present: من بلاک می‌کنم (man block mikonam), تو بلاک می‌کنی (to block mikoni), او بلاک می‌کند (u block mikonad)
• Past: بلاکش کردم (block-esh kardam, I blocked him/her)
• Passive: بلاک شدم (block shodam, I got blocked)
• Subjunctive: که بلاک کنم (ke block konam)

The passive form بلاک شدن (block-shodan, to be blocked) gets heavy use because being blocked is itself an event Iranians talk about openly: “بلاکم کرد” (block-am kard, she blocked me) is a complete narrative.

How to use it

baradar-zane sabeghet ro block kon, dige laazem nist behesh fekr koni.

Block your ex-brother-in-law, you do not need to think about him anymore.

برادرزن سابقت رو بلاک کن، دیگه لازم نیست بهش فکر کنی.

man har kasi ke harf-e siaasi-ye charand bezane block mikonam.

I block anyone who talks political nonsense.

من هر کسی که حرف سیاسی چرند بزنه بلاک می‌کنم.

The politics of the block

Blocking on Iranian Instagram and X is a political act. After the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, mass blocking became a way of pruning networks: pro-regime accounts blocked diaspora critics, protest sympathizers blocked relatives who stayed silent, activists blocked anyone who shared official IRIB content. Whole family branches got severed by block. Some Iranian users keep public spreadsheets of which Khaleh Zaynab accounts to block at scale. The block is not just personal hygiene; it is a small declaration of where you stand.

In our voice

For a learner, بلاک کردن is one of the small Persian verbs that quietly reveals how much Iranian social life now happens on these platforms. Use it the same way you would in English, but be aware that on Iranian internet, the block carries more political weight per click than it does in most countries.

References

• Dehkhoda, بلاک
• Vajehyab, بلاک