What it means
هنوز (hanuz) means “still” when something continues (“she is still sleeping”) and “yet” when something has not happened (“I have not eaten yet”). It is a native Persian word tracing back to Middle Persian and classical literature, appearing in the poetry of Rumi, Hafez, and Sa’di. It has no direct Arabic equivalent grafted onto it and is one of the core adverbs every learner encounters in the first weeks of study. A close functional pair is دیگر (digar), which signals the opposite, that something no longer holds or that it is time to move on.
How to use it
- هنوز نخوابیده. (hanuz nakhābide.) “She still has not fallen asleep.”
- هنوز غذا نخوردم. (hanuz ghaza nakhordam.) “I have not eaten yet.”
- آیا هنوز اینجایی؟ (aya hanuz injāyi?) “Are you still here?”
- هنوز خیلی کارها داریم. (hanuz kheyli kārhā darim.) “We still have a lot of work to do.”
Cultural note
هنوز carries emotional weight in Persian literature and song far beyond its grammatical function. Rumi used it repeatedly to express longing and incompleteness, and the word echoes through ghazals as a marker of waiting, hope, and unfulfilled desire. In contemporary spoken Persian the word is completely neutral and workaday, but in poetic or lyrical contexts it instantly activates those classical overtones. This dual life as both a grammatical workhorse and a literary touchstone makes it one of the most culturally layered simple adverbs in the language.