فیک

What it means

فیک (feyek, also spelled feyk) is the Persianized loan of the English fake. Iranian Gen Z deploys it as a flat adjective for anything inauthentic: a fake Instagram account, a fake friend, a fake apology, a fake luxury bag in a Pasdaran shop window. The construction feyek-e (the fake one) is common; so is the bare adjective use, profile-esh feyek-e (his profile is fake).

How it gets used

Mostly attached to people, accounts, and behavior. The word does double work: it labels the object (the fake account) and it judges the actor (the person behind it). When a Persian speaker calls someone feyek, they mean both that the person is putting on a performance and that the performance is not even convincing.

in account-e feyek-e, akkâsesh-am dozdide.

This account is fake, his photos are stolen.

این اکانت فیکه، عکساش‌ام دزدیده.

nakhâstam ke feyek bâshâm, gofdam vâqe’iyat-o.

I didn’t want to be fake, I told the truth.

نخواستم که فیک باشم، گفتم واقعیتو.

dust-e feyek bishtar az doshman zaarar mizaneh.

A fake friend hurts more than an enemy.

دوست فیک بیشتر از دشمن ضرر می‌زنه.

Where it comes from

Direct English loan, naturalized through social media in the late 2010s. Persian already had قلابی (qollâbi, counterfeit), دروغی (dorughi, lying-fake), and کاذب (kâzeb, false, formal Arabic loan). Feyek did not replace them; it took over the specific online register where Instagram accounts, dating profiles, and crypto bros operate. The spelling فیک is now standard on Persian Twitter and in chat. The longer fake-ی (fake-i) and feyek-e construction reflect Persian’s habit of attaching its own grammar to English roots.

Register and feel

Casual, online-native, neutral in intensity. You can use feyek about a stranger’s profile without escalating. It is not the heavy word; it is the everyday word. Older speakers may say قلابی for the same thing, especially about physical objects.

In our voice

Feyek is what English gave Persian when Persian needed a quick way to call out a screen. Like other Gen Z loans (notif, spim, lâyk), it slots into Persian grammar without asking permission and works fine. Use it where you would use fake in English.

References

• Dehkhoda, فیک
• Vajehyab, فیک