دزد

What it means

دزد (dozd) means thief or burglar. The word is pure Persian, tracing back through Middle Persian to Old Iranian, with no Arabic or Turkic borrowing involved. It refers to anyone who takes what does not belong to them, from a pickpocket on the metro to someone who breaks into a home at night. The derived verb is دزدیدن (dozdidan) or the compound دزدی کردن (dozdi kardan), both meaning to steal or to commit theft. The abstract noun دزدی (dozdi) means theft or the act of stealing. In children’s speech and casual conversation, دزد is the unmarked, neutral word; there is no polite euphemism in common use.

How to use it

• دزد اومده خونه‌مونو برده (dozd umade khunemo borde) “A thief came and cleaned out our house.”
• دزدی کردن کار بدیه (dozdi kardan kâr-e badie) “Stealing is a bad thing to do.”
• پلیس دزده رو گرفت (polis dozd-e ro gereft) “The police caught the thief.”
• بچه‌ها دزد و پلیس بازی می‌کردن (bachehâ dozd-o-polis bâzi mikardan) “The kids were playing cops and robbers.”

Cultural note

One of the most beloved children’s street games in Iran is دزد و پلیس (dozd-o-polis), a tag-style game where one team plays thieves and the other plays police. The game is a fixture of Iranian childhood memory regardless of generation, and the phrase دزد و پلیس has since entered adult speech as a metaphor for any cat-and-mouse dynamic. Separately, calling a politician or official a دزد is one of the most common and pointed insults in Iranian public discourse, carrying a weight beyond simple name-calling.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab