What it means
دما (damâ) means temperature, the measurable degree of heat or cold in an environment, object, or body. The word is built on the pure Persian root دم (dam), which means breath, vapor, or warm exhalation, giving the compound an intuitive connection between warmth and the act of breathing. In modern Persian, دما is the standard scientific and meteorological term for temperature, used in weather forecasts, medical contexts (where body temperature is دمای بدن, damâ-ye badan), and physics. A close related noun is حرارت (harârat, heat), borrowed from Arabic, but دما is the precise, measurable quantity while harârat is more about the sensation or intensity of heat. Degrees Celsius are expressed as درجه سانتیگراد (daraje-ye sântigrâd).
How to use it
- دمای هوا امروز چند درجهست؟ (damâ-ye havâ emruz chand daraje-st?) “What is the air temperature today?”
- دمای بدنم بالا رفته، فکر کنم تب دارم. (damâ-ye badanam bâlâ rafte, fekr konam tab dâram.) “My body temperature has gone up, I think I have a fever.”
- زمستون دمای تهران خیلی پایین میاد. (zemestun damâ-ye Tehrân kheyli pâyin miyâd.) “In winter Tehran’s temperature drops a lot.”
- دما رسیده به چهل درجه، بچهها رو بیرون نبرید. (damâ resideh be chehel daraje, bachehâ ro birun nabarid.) “The temperature has hit forty degrees, don’t take the kids outside.”
Cultural note
Iran uses the Celsius scale for all official temperature reporting, in line with the rest of the world outside the United States. Weather forecasts on Iranian state television and radio give the دمای روز (damâ-ye ruz, daytime high) and دمای شب (damâ-ye shab, overnight low) as standard daily information. The extreme range of temperatures across Iran’s geography, from minus 30 Celsius in the Alborz mountains in winter to plus 50 in Khuzestan in summer, makes دما a genuinely important practical word in daily life rather than just a classroom vocabulary item.