ماشین

ماشین is borrowed from French "machine," entering Persian during the late Qajar period (late 19th to early 20th century) along with much European industrial vocabulary. The Qajar court sent students to Paris and imported European technology, dragging French loanwords with them. ماشین stuck because Persian had no native word for the new mechanical objects suddenly arriving in Iranian life: locomotives, sewing machines, printing presses. Over the 20th century, the meaning narrowed to "car" specifically, while compound nouns kept the broader "machine" sense alive. Other surviving French loans from the same period include آسانسور (āsānsor, elevator), رستوران (restorān, restaurant), and پاساژ (pāsāzh, arcade or shopping passage). Modern Persian still routes new technology vocabulary through this same loanword instinct, though English has replaced French as the dominant donor.