What it means
دوقلو (dogholu) means twin: two siblings born from a single pregnancy. The word was borrowed from Turkish as a whole unit and has been fully absorbed into everyday Persian. Dehkhoda traces it to the Turkish root doğ (to be born) plus the suffix -lu, so the دو in دوقلو is not the Persian word for two but part of the Turkic stem doğ. The word can refer to two individuals together (the twins) or, with a singular sense, to each member of the pair. A related phrase you will hear is دوقلوهای یکسان (dogholuha-ye yeksan), identical twins, as opposed to دوقلوهای غیریکسان (dogholuha-ye gheyr-e yeksan), fraternal twins.
How to use it
- اون دو تا دوقلو هستن. (un do ta dogholu hastan.) “Those two are twins.”
- دوقلوهاشون خیلی شبیه همن. (dogholuha-shun kheyli shabih-e haman.) “Their twins look very much alike.”
- خواهرم دوقلو به دنیا آورد. (khaharam dogholu be donya avard.) “My sister gave birth to twins.”
- تو دوقلو داری؟ (to dogholu dari?) “Do you have a twin?”
Cultural note
In Iran, the birth of twins is often greeted with particular excitement in extended families, and grandparents may mark the occasion with a sofreh or small gathering. The idea that twins share a special bond is widely held in Persian folk belief, and stories of twins who can sense each other’s feelings appear in oral tradition. Because Iran’s fertility rate has dropped in recent decades and twin births remain relatively uncommon, a family with دوقلو is often the subject of affectionate curiosity from neighbors and relatives.