What it means
حضور (hozur) is borrowed directly from Arabic حُضُور (hudur), from the three-letter root ح-ض-ر, which carries the idea of being physically present, arriving, and being ready. In university and school contexts it means attendance, the record that a student was in class on a given day. In broader Persian usage hozur also means presence in the sense of dignity or bearing: حضور ذهن (hozur-e zehn) means mental alertness or presence of mind, and the phrase has nothing academic about it. The direct antonym in the classroom is غیبت (gheybat, absence). The adjective form حاضر (hâzer, present, ready) appears in roll call: when a teacher calls a name, the student responds حاضر (hâzer), meaning present.
How to use it
- حضور و غیاب رو استاد اول کلاس میزنه. (hozur o gheyâb ro ostâd avval-e kelâs mizane.) “The professor takes attendance at the start of class.”
- حضور منظم توی کلاس روی نمرهات تاثیر داره. (hozur-e monazzam tu kelâs ru nomre-at tâsir dâre.) “Regular attendance has an effect on your grade.”
- اسمم رو صدا زد و گفتم حاضر. (esmam ro sedâ zad o goftam hâzer.) “They called my name and I said present.”
- برگهی حضور رو امضا کردم. (barghe-ye hozur ro emzâ kardam.) “I signed the attendance sheet.”
Cultural note
Attendance in Iranian schools is taken seriously at all levels, from primary school through university, and the attendance register is a formal document. The phrase حضور و غیاب (hozur o gheyâb, attendance and absence) is the standard administrative pairing used to name the act of taking the register. Beyond academics, hozur carries a literary and even spiritual resonance in Persian: poets use it to describe the presence of the beloved, and in religious contexts it describes the presence of God or a venerated figure. A student learning this word is therefore also picking up a word that echoes through classical poetry and Sufi literature.