What it means
دانه (dâne) means grain or seed, and it also functions as one of the most common Persian numeral classifiers, used when counting small, discrete, individual items. It comes from Middle Persian dânag and is a fully native Persian word. When you count pills, eggs, beads, drops of water, buttons, or grapes, you use dâne as the counter between the number and the noun. A related classifier is تا (tâ), which is more general and applies to a wider range of objects, whereas dâne implies small, round, or granular things.
How to use it
- دو دانه قرص بخور. (Do dâne qors bokhor.) “Take two pills.”
- سه دانه تخممرغ لازم داری؟ (Se dâne tokhm-morgh lâzem dâri?) “Do you need three eggs?”
- یه دانه اشتباه کافیه همه چیز رو خراب کنه. (Ye dâne eshtebâh kâfiye hame chiz ro kharâb kone.) “One single mistake is enough to ruin everything.”
- چند دانه انگور برام بذار. (Chand dâne angur baram bezâr.) “Put a few grapes for me.”
Cultural note
In Persian culture, the concept of the single grain, دانه، carries symbolic weight in poetry and proverbs. Rumi famously uses the image of a grain of wheat to represent the human soul planted in the earth, growing toward spiritual harvest. In everyday modern Persian, dâne as a counter is so natural that speakers often do not think of it as a classifier at all. It is also used affectionately in compounds such as دانه دانه (dâne dâne), meaning one by one or each individual one.