داد و بیداد

What it means

داد و بیداد (dâd o bidâd) means “hue and cry,” “uproar,” or “big fuss.” The phrase is a compound: داد (dâd) means a shout or cry for justice, and بیداد (bidâd) is its lamenting partner, often translated “injustice” or “loud complaint.” Together they describe the act of making noise, raising hell, kicking up a scene about something. The Persian habit of pairing a word with its rhyming partner to make an emphatic abstract noun runs through other classics too: گیر و دار (“struggle”), رنج و عذاب (“pain and torment”), شاد و خرم (“happy and joyful”).

How to use it

• داد و بیداد کرد (dâd o bidâd kard) “he made a big fuss”
• سر چی داد و بیداد می‌کنی؟ (sar-e chi dâd o bidâd mikoni) “what are you making a scene about?”
• داد و بیدادش رفت آسمون (dâd o bidâdesh raft âsmun) “his shouting hit the sky”

Register notes

Casual, slightly colorful, friendly to all ages. Use it in conversation with friends, family, and colleagues. It carries a faint air of disapproval: somebody is making more noise than the situation deserves, and the speaker is calling that out. In writing it shows up in news features and editorials describing public outcry, with a more neutral tone. There is no vulgarity here. The phrase pairs with کردن (“to do”) in standard usage (داد و بیداد کرد), and with راه انداختن (“to start up”) for the inception sense (داد و بیداد راه انداخت, “he kicked up a fuss”). Both forms are common.

Cultural note

The pairing of داد and بیداد is older than the slang use, with both words rooted in the classical lexicon of justice and oppression. Hafez and Saadi both lean on these terms in poems about cosmic unfairness, where داد and بیداد form the moral backbone of the verse. In modern conversational Persian the pairing has softened into the everyday “big fuss” sense, with the original political-poetic weight surfacing only in literary contexts. The compound structure is itself classic Persian: pair a word with its rhyming opposite to make a vivid abstract noun. Listen for the same pattern in نان و آب (“bread and water,” meaning livelihood) or خواب و خوراک (“sleep and food,” meaning the basics of life). The structure is everywhere once you start hearing it.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab