What it means
حرف تو دهنم گذاشت (harf tu dahanam gozâsht) means “he put words in my mouth.” Iranians say it when someone has misrepresented their speech, or pressured them into saying something specific.
How to use it
- حرف تو دهنم گذاشت (harf tu dahanam gozâsht) “He put words in my mouth”
- این حرف من نبود، حرف تو دهنم گذاشتی (in harfe man nabud, harf tu dahanam gozâshti) “That wasn’t my view, you put it there”
- حرف تو دهن کسی گذاشتن کار درستی نیست (harf tu dahane kasi gozâshtan kâre dorosti nist) “It’s not right to put words in someone’s mouth”
The literal meaning
The image is physical: someone reaches over and places a sentence directly inside your mouth, as if force-feeding speech. حرف (harf) is an Arabic loan meaning “word, speech.”
The figurative meaning
Either someone misquoted you, or someone tried to coach your answer in advance. Both are violations of your voice. The phrase is a defense.
When you’d say it
A young woman pushes back at a relative who just told a third party that “she said she wants to get married soon,” when she said no such thing.
Cultural note
This phrase shows up most in family politics, where older relatives sometimes “speak for” younger ones in matchmaking, career, or in-law conversations. The taarof culture of indirect speech makes the offense more common: a guest’s polite “maybe” can get repeated back as “yes,” and حرف تو دهنم گذاشت is the corrective.
References
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