فنا

Modern Iranian usage of فنا outside poetry has narrowed. The phrase به فنا رفتن (be fanâ raftan, literally "to go to fanâ") in colloquial Persian means "to be ruined, destroyed, wrecked," with no Sufi resonance. A car that crashes has gone به فنا. A relationship that collapsed has gone به فنا. Iranians keep the spiritual sense alive when reading or quoting poetry, and lose it entirely in daily speech. The word lives in two parallel registers, and educated speakers move between them without confusion.