انفرادی

What it means

انفرادی (enferâdi) is an Arabic-origin adjective derived from the root ف-ر-د (f-r-d), meaning a single unit or individual. The adjective انفرادی means pertaining to one person, done alone, or solitary. It functions as a modifier across a range of contexts: کار انفرادی (kâr-e enferâdi) means individual work or a solo task; بازی انفرادی (bâzi-ye enferâdi) means a solo game; مسابقه‌ی انفرادی (mosâbeghe-ye enferâdi) is an individual competition. The most heavily loaded compound is زندان انفرادی (zendân-e enferâdi), solitary confinement, which in the Iranian context carries strong political and human rights associations.

How to use it

• این پروژه کار انفرادیه (in projeye kâr-e enferâdiye) “This project is individual work.”
• زندان انفرادی طاقت‌فرساست (zendân-e enferâdi tâghat-farsâst) “Solitary confinement is exhausting.”
• مسابقه‌ی انفرادی داریم (mosâbeghe-ye enferâdi dârim) “We have an individual competition.”
• کار انفرادی رو بیشتر دوست داره (kâr-e enferâdi ro bishtar dust dâre) “He prefers to work alone.”

Cultural note

زندان انفرادی has become one of the most politically resonant compound nouns in modern Persian. Accounts of political prisoners held in solitary confinement have shaped Iranian human rights discourse since the 1979 revolution, and the phrase appears frequently in memoirs, journalism, and political speech. At a more everyday level, the adjective انفرادی is entirely neutral, used in schools and workplaces to distinguish solo tasks from group ones, carrying none of that weight outside the prison context.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab