What it means
مرتب (morattab) means “neat,” “tidy,” or “regular” in Persian, borrowed from Arabic via the root ر-ت-ب (r-t-b), which means to arrange or put in order. In Persian it covers both physical tidiness, as in a clean room or a well-arranged desk, and temporal regularity, meaning something that happens repeatedly or on schedule. You can say someone comes مرتب (morattab) to mean they come regularly, just as you can describe a مرتب room as an orderly one. The colloquial antonym is بههمریخته (be-ham-rikhte), meaning messy or disorganized.
How to use it
- اتاقت رو مرتب کن. (otâghat ro morattab kon.) “Tidy up your room.”
- اون مرتب سر وقت میاد. (un morattab sar-e vaqt miyâd.) “He comes regularly and on time.”
- موهاشو مرتب شونه زده بود. (muhâsho morattab shune zade bud.) “Her hair was neatly combed.”
- باید مرتب ورزش کنی. (bâyad morattab varzesh koni.) “You need to exercise regularly.”
Cultural note
Tidiness carries strong social weight in Iranian culture: a مرتب home signals a respectable household, and hosts go to great lengths to present an ordered space before guests arrive. The word also appears in descriptions of Khatam-kâri (inlay woodwork) and Persian carpet patterns, where the regularity and precision of geometric motifs are praised as مرتب. Schools and traditional workshops emphasize مرتب as a virtue that connects physical order with moral discipline.