لکه

What it means

لکه (lekke) means “spot, stain, blemish, mark.” A concrete, everyday noun for any unwanted mark on a surface. A coffee stain on a shirt, an ink dot on a page, a bruise on the skin, a wet patch on the carpet. Iranian moms know this word intimately, and so does any kid who has ever spilled juice on a Persian rug.

How to use it

• یه لکه روی پیراهنمه (ye lekke ru-ye pirâhanam-e) “there’s a stain on my shirt”
• این لکه پاک نمی‌شه (in lekke pâk nemishe) “this stain won’t come out”
• لکه‌ی قهوه (lekke-ye qahve) “coffee stain”
• لکه‌ی گرد رو دیوار (lekke-ye gerd ru divâr) “a round spot on the wall”
• لکه‌بر می‌خوام (lekke-bor mikhâm) “I need stain remover”

Common compounds

لکه‌بر (lekke-bor, “stain remover”) is the supermarket product. لکه‌گیری (lekke-giri, “spot cleaning”) is the action of removing one. بی‌لکه (bi-lekke, “spotless, without stain”) describes a clean shirt or, figuratively, a clean reputation. The base noun expands easily into compounds because the concept of “a mark on something” reaches into many domains: cloth, paper, skin, character.

Metaphorical use

The figurative weight is heavy. لکه‌ای بر دامنم (lekke-i bar dâman-am, “a stain on my robe”) means a stain on my honor, my reputation, my family name. The phrase appears in classical poetry, in family arguments, in news headlines about politicians. It connects to Iranian honor culture, where reputation is treated as a fabric that can hold a permanent mark. To say someone has “left a stain” is to say they have damaged something that cannot easily be washed clean. The everyday and the moral senses live side by side in the same word.

Plural and forms

The plural لکه‌ها (lekke-hâ, “stains”) is regular. لکه‌دار (lekke-dâr, “stained, having a stain”) is the adjective form, used both literally (لباس لکه‌دار, lebâs-e lekke-dâr, “a stained shirt”) and figuratively (آبروی لکه‌دار, âberu-ye lekke-dâr, “stained honor”). Iranian moms also use the diminutive لکه کوچولو (lekke-ye kuchulu, “a tiny little stain”) when downplaying a kid’s spill on a relative’s couch. The fight to get a stain out of fabric is universal, and Persian gives you the full vocabulary of denial, complaint, scrubbing, and resignation around it.