What it means
بودجه (budje) is a direct borrowing from French budget, which itself derives from Old French bougette, a small leather bag used to carry coins. The word entered Persian in the late Qajar and early Pahlavi periods along with other administrative and financial terminology adopted from European models. It means budget, a planned or allocated amount of money for a specific purpose, whether a family deciding how much to spend on rent or the government setting annual state expenditures. There is no native Persian synonym with exactly the same meaning, which explains why this loanword stuck.
How to use it
- بودجهام تموم شد. (budjem tamum shod.) “My budget is used up.”
- بودجه دولت امسال افزایش داشت. (budje-ye dowlat emsal afzâyesh dâsht.) “The government budget increased this year.”
- باید بودجهبندی کنیم. (bâyad budje-bandi konim.) “We need to create a budget.”
- بودجهای برای این نداریم. (budjeyi barâye in nadârim.) “We don’t have a budget for this.”
Cultural note
In Iran, the annual state بودجه is a major political event. The government presents a budget bill to parliament each year before Nowruz, and the debates over allocations for different sectors receive extensive media coverage. At the household level, the word has been fully absorbed into spoken Persian and feels entirely natural despite its foreign origin. The derived compound بودجهبندی (budje-bandi, budgeting) is also widely used, showing how the loanword has generated its own Persian vocabulary family.