What it means
حقیقت (haghighat) means truth or reality. The word comes from Arabic حَقِيقَة (haqiqa), from the root ح-ق-ق (h-q-q), meaning that which is fixed, certain, or due. In Arabic the root generates a whole family of important words: حق (haqq, right or truth), محقق (mohaqqeq, researcher), and حقوق (hoghugh, rights or law). Persian inherited حقیقت and uses it in both everyday speech and more formal or philosophical contexts. A closely related word is واقعیت (vâghei’yat), which leans toward factual or material reality, while حقیقت tends to carry more of a moral or deeper sense of truth. The adverbial phrase در حقیقت (dar haghighat) functions like “in truth,” “actually,” or “in fact” and is common in both spoken and written Persian.
How to use it
- حقیقت رو بگو (haghighat ro begu) “Tell the truth.”
- در حقیقت مشکل از اون بود (dar haghighat moshkel az un bud) “In truth the problem was with him.”
- حقیقت تلخه (haghighat talkhe) “The truth is bitter.”
- دنبال حقیقت میگردم (donbâl-e haghighat migardam) “I am looking for the truth.”
Cultural note
Iranian classical literature places حقیقت at the heart of Sufi and philosophical poetry. In Rumi’s Masnavi and Hafez’s ghazals, the search for حقیقت is the soul’s fundamental quest, the stripping away of illusion (majâz) to reach real or divine truth. Even in secular everyday speech, when an Iranian says حقیقت رو بگو, the phrase carries a small echo of that deeper tradition: telling the truth is not merely a social rule but an act that aligns the speaker with something real and permanent.
References
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