What it means
لیتر (litr) means “litre,” the metric unit of volume. It is a direct borrowing from French litre, which entered Persian along with the metric system in the twentieth century. The word is fully naturalised and used without any native alternative. A close related term is میلیلیتر (millilitr), one thousandth of a litre, which appears on medicine bottles and recipes.
How to use it
- یک لیتر آب بده به من. (yek litr âb bede be man.) “Give me one litre of water.”
- باک ماشینم ۵۰ لیتر بنزین جا داره. (bâk-e mâshinam panjâh litr benzin jâ dâre.) “My car’s tank holds fifty litres of petrol.”
- دو لیتر شیر خریدم. (do litr shir kharidám.) “I bought two litres of milk.”
- این بطری نیم لیتره. (in botri nim litre.) “This bottle is half a litre.”
Cultural note
Iran adopted the metric system officially in 1925 during the Pahlavi modernisation reforms, and French was the primary language of science and education in Iran at the time, so most metric terms entered Persian through French rather than English. Petrol in Iran is still sold by the litre at government-set prices, and Iranians habitually talk about fuel consumption in litres per hundred kilometres, just as Europeans do.