What it means
کهکشان (kahkeshân) means galaxy, and it is the word Iranians use for the Milky Way as well as for any galaxy in astronomical speech. The word is pure Persian: کاه (kâh) means straw, and کشان (keshân) is the present-participial form of کشیدن (keshidan), meaning pulling or dragging. The compound paints a picture: the faint band of stars stretched across a dark sky looks like straw being dragged through the night. It is one of the most evocative compound nouns in the language, and it is entirely native. No Arabic or Turkic root is involved.
How to use it
- امشب کهکشان رو با چشم میبینم. (emshab kahkeshân ro bâ cheshm mibinam.) “Tonight I can see the Milky Way with the naked eye.”
- کهکشان راه شیری چقدر بزرگه. (kahkeshân-e râh-e shiri cheghadr bozorge.) “The Milky Way galaxy is so large.”
- توی کیهان میلیاردها کهکشان هست. (tu-ye keyhân milyârdhâ kahkeshân hast.) “There are billions of galaxies in the universe.”
- این عکس از کهکشانه؟ (in aks az kahkeshâne?) “Is this photo of a galaxy?”
Cultural note
Persian has two poetic names for the Milky Way. کهکشان is the native compound used in science and everyday speech. The older literary phrase راه شیری (râh-e shiri), meaning “the milky road,” appears in classical poetry and is still understood today. In pre-modern Iranian astronomical tradition, which built on both Greek and Indian sources, the galaxy was observed and named centuries before the telescope, and the straw-pulling image likely reflects the paled, dusty appearance of the galactic band visible from the Iranian plateau on clear nights. The word now appears in school textbooks, news headlines about space, and science journalism without any sense of archaism.