What it means
مفصل (mafsal) is the anatomical word for a joint, the place in your body where two bones meet and allow movement, like the knee, elbow, or shoulder. It comes from Arabic, built on the root ف ص ل (f-s-l), which means to separate or divide, so a مفصل is literally the point where bones articulate. The everyday native Persian word بند (band) also covers joints, especially small ones like بند انگشت (band-e angošt), “finger joint.” But مفصل is the term you hear from doctors and in medical contexts. Its broken plural, also from Arabic, is مفاصل (mafāsel), “joints.”
How to use it
- مفصل زانوم درد میکنه. (mafsal-e zānum dard mikone.) “My knee joint hurts.”
- درد مفاصل دارم. (dard-e mafāsel dāram.) “I have joint pain.”
- مفصل دستم خشک شده. (mafsal-e dastam khoshk shode.) “My wrist joint has gotten stiff.”
- دکتر گفت التهاب مفصل دارم. (doktor goft eltehāb-e mafsal dāram.) “The doctor said I have joint inflammation.”
Cultural note
In Iran, complaints about درد مفاصل (dard-e mafāsel) are common among older people, and joint pain is a frequent topic in family conversation and at the pharmacy. Many Iranians treat it first with home remedies and herbal compresses before seeing a doctor. The word مفصل belongs to the large layer of Arabic medical and scientific vocabulary that entered Persian over centuries, which is why clinical terms often sound more formal than their everyday native counterparts.