What it means
لنگ زدن (lang zadan) means to limp or to walk with a hobble. It is a pure Persian compound verb formed from لنگ (lang), meaning lame or limping, and زدن (zadan), the light verb meaning to strike or do. The root lang traces back to Proto-Iranian *langa- (from Proto-Indo-Iranian *langa-, meaning lame), making it one of the oldest inherited words in Persian, with cognates in Kurdish, Pashto, and Sanskrit. It is perhaps most famous internationally through the epithet تیمور لنگ (Timur-e Lang), Timur the Lame, the 14th-century conqueror known in English as Tamerlane. A close synonym is چلاق راه رفتن (chalaaq raah raftan), though لنگ زدن is far more common in everyday speech.
How to use it
- از وقتی پاش شکسته لنگ میزنه. (Az vaqti paash shekaste, lang mizane.) “Since his leg broke, he has been limping.”
- چرا لنگ میزنی؟ پات چیه؟ (Chera lang mizani? Paat chiye?) “Why are you limping? What is wrong with your foot?”
- یه مدت لنگ زدم ولی الان خوبم. (Ye moddat lang zadam vali alaan khobam.) “I limped for a while but I am fine now.”
- سگه لنگ لنگان داشت میرفت. (Sage lang langaan daasht miraft.) “The dog was going along with a hobbling gait.”
Cultural note
The word لنگ (lang) and its reduplicated form لنگ لنگان (lang langaan), meaning hobbling along, are vivid parts of colloquial Persian speech. The historical association with تیمور لنگ gave the word a certain weight in Persian historical memory, as Timur’s campaigns left a deep mark on the Persian-speaking world. In everyday modern usage, لنگ زدن is a neutral, descriptive verb with no particular stigma, used matter-of-factly to describe someone walking with an uneven gait after an injury.