What it means
ایست (ist) means stop or halt. It comes directly from the Persian root ایستادن (istâdan, to stand or to stop), which is an old Indo-Iranian verb with deep Persian roots. As a noun it names the act of stopping or a stop point. As a command it is the equivalent of “halt” and appears on stop signs (تابلوی ایست, tâblo-ye ist) and in military or police contexts. The colloquial spoken equivalent is وایسا (vâysâ) or صبر کن (sabr kon), but ایست on a sign carries official weight. A related form is ایستگاه (istgâh), meaning station or stop, as in a bus stop.
How to use it
- ایست! پلیسم. (ist! polisam.) “Stop! I am the police.”
- تابلوی ایست رو ندیدی؟ (tâblo-ye ist ro nadidi?) “Didn’t you see the stop sign?”
- ایست قلبی داشت. (ist-e qalbi dâsht.) “He had a cardiac arrest.”
- اینجا ایست بازرسیه. (injâ ist-e bâzrasi-ye.) “There is a checkpoint here.”
Cultural note
Stop signs in Iran display the word ایست in Persian script rather than the Latin STOP, unlike some countries that adopted the international shape with English text. The compound ایست بازرسی (ist-e bâzrasi) means checkpoint and is a common fixture on roads between cities and at entry points to sensitive areas. ایستگاه (istgâh, station) is another everyday descendant of this root, used for metro stations, bus stops, and police stations, making ایست one of the most productive roots in urban Persian vocabulary.