What it means
جوی (juy) is an old Persian word for a narrow channel of running water: a stream, a brook, an irrigation ditch, or a roadside gutter. The colloquial form جوب (jub) is the word Tehranis use for the open water channels that historically ran along the sides of city streets, fed by mountain snowmelt from the Alborz. A broader synonym is نهر (nahr), borrowed from Arabic, which refers to a larger canal or river branch. جوی is the smaller, more intimate, and more distinctly Persian of the two.
How to use it
- بچهها داشتن توی جوی بازی میکردن. (bachche-hâ dâshtan tu-ye juy bâzi mi-kardan.) “The kids were playing in the stream.”
- آب از جوی رد میشه و مزرعه رو آبیاری میکنه. (âb az juy rad mi-she o mazra’e ro âbiâri mi-kone.) “Water flows through the channel and irrigates the field.”
- جوی کنار خیابون خشک شده. (juy-e kenâr-e khiâbun khoshk shode.) “The gutter channel by the street has dried up.”
- یه جوی کوچیک از باغ رد میشه. (ye juy-e kuchik az bâgh rad mi-she.) “A small stream runs through the garden.”
Cultural note
For centuries, Tehran and many other Iranian cities relied on a network of open roadside channels called جوب (jub) to distribute water from mountain springs into neighborhoods for drinking, cooking, and washing. Most of these channels were covered over or replaced by underground pipes during twentieth-century urban development, but the word جوب remains in everyday Tehran speech and in place names. The same system of small channels was essential to Persian garden design, where running water through a central channel defined the classic char-bagh layout.