What it means
حذف (hazf) comes from Arabic حَذْف, meaning the act of cutting away or removing something. It entered Persian long ago in the grammatical sense of eliding or dropping a word from a sentence, and that literary use is still alive today. In the digital era, حذف has become the primary word for deleting: a file, a message, an account, or a record. The verb form حذف کردن (hazf kardan) means “to delete,” and the passive حذف شدن (hazf shodan) means “to be deleted” or “to get removed.” A near synonym in very casual speech is پاک کردن (pak kardan, literally “to clean”), which feels slightly softer.
How to use it
- اکانتم رو حذف کردم. (Akantam ro hazf kardam.) “I deleted my account.”
- این پیام رو حذف کن. (In payaam ro hazf kon.) “Delete this message.”
- فایل اشتباهی حذف شد. (Fayl-e eshtebahi hazf shod.) “The wrong file got deleted.”
- میخوای این رو حذف کنم یا نگه دارم؟ (Mikhaay ino hazf konam ya negah daaram?) “Do you want me to delete this or keep it?”
Cultural note
حذف carries weight beyond computers: in Iranian public life the word is used to describe the disqualification of political candidates by the Guardian Council, a process Iranians call حذف نامزدها (hazf-e namzadha). This political meaning runs alongside the everyday tech usage, so the word has both a mundane digital life and a charged civic resonance for Persian speakers. In classical Persian grammar, حذف referred specifically to the omission of a verb or noun that is recoverable from context, a concept that still appears in Persian language textbooks.