What it means
لحظه (lahzeh) means a moment or instant, a very short span of time. It is borrowed from Arabic لَحظة (lahzah), which itself comes from the root lahaza, meaning “to glance” or “to look briefly.” The image behind the word is elegant: a moment as brief as a single glance. In Persian, لحظه is fully naturalized and used constantly in both spoken and written contexts. A related synonym is لمحه (lomheh, also from Arabic), which carries the same meaning but is slightly more formal and less frequent. The pure Persian alternative آن (ân), meaning an instant, is poetic and rare in everyday speech.
How to use it
- یه لحظه صبر کن. (ye lahzeh sabr kon.) “Wait a moment.”
- اون لحظه رو فراموش نمیکنم. (un lahzeh ro farâmush nemikonam.) “I’ll never forget that moment.”
- لحظهای نشست و رفت. (lahzeh-i neshost o raft.) “He sat for a moment and left.”
- هر لحظه ممکنه برسه. (har lahzeh momkeneh berese.) “He could arrive any moment.”
Cultural note
The concept of the fleeting moment is central to Persian poetry and philosophy. Classical poets, particularly Hafez and Khayyam, returned repeatedly to the preciousness and fragility of the لحظه, urging readers to seize the present rather than mourning the past or fearing the future. This tradition is so deeply embedded that the word لحظه carries subtle emotional weight even in casual speech. In modern Persian, it also appears in compound expressions such as لحظهای (lahzeh-i, “for a moment”) and آن لحظه (ân lahzeh, “that moment”), both extremely common.