ماشین

Persian ماشین means “car.” It also still means “machine,” because the word arrived from French during the Qajar industrial moment and never stopped expanding.

What it actually means

ماشین in modern Persian means “car” by default. “ماشین من خرابه” (my car is broken), “با ماشین می‌رم” (I’m going by car), “ماشین آبی” (the blue car). But the word started as a generic “machine” and still carries that broader sense in compound nouns: ماشین لباسشویی (washing machine), ماشین حساب (calculator, “calculation machine”), ماشین چاپ (printing machine), ماشین بافندگی (knitting machine). The single noun is “car,” but compounded with a function word it becomes any kind of mechanical device. Older or formal Persian still uses اتومبیل (otomobīl, automobile) for car, but in everyday speech ماشین has won completely. Even the verbal form “ماشینی” (māshīnī, “mechanized” or “automatic”) is in common use.

How to say it

ماشین is invariant across registers. Spoken and written Persian use the same form. The plural is regular: ماشین‌ها (māshīnhā, cars / machines). In Iranian dialects you may hear shortened forms like “ماشینم” (māshīn-am, my car) where the ezafe + possessive merge into a single suffix.

In a sentence

Cultural note

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.

Related

You will see this word together with خانه (home, where the car is parked) and کار (work, where the car often takes you). For the broader story of Persian’s relationship with loanwords, read our guide to Persian etymology: Arabic, French, and Turkish in your Farsi.