مرغ همسایه غاز است

What it means

مرغ همسایه غاز است (morgh-e hamsâye ghâz ast) is a classic Persian proverb. مرغ (morgh) means hen or chicken, همسایه (hamsâye) means neighbor, غاز (ghâz) means goose, and است (ast) is the verb “is.” The proverb is the Persian equivalent of the English saying “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

The literal meaning

Word by word: “the chicken of the neighbor is a goose.” The image is a peasant looking over the wall at the neighbor’s yard. His own chicken looks small and ordinary. The neighbor’s chicken, simply because it belongs to the neighbor, looks bigger, fatter, more valuable, almost a goose. The proverb compresses jealous comparison into a single visual. In rural Iran where the proverb originated, the difference between owning chickens and owning geese was a real economic gap, since geese yielded more meat and fat. So the substitution is not random: the neighbor’s small thing has been mentally upgraded into a bigger thing of the same family.

The figurative meaning

You think other people have it better than you. Their job sounds more interesting, their spouse seems kinder, their kids better behaved, their car newer, their vacation more exciting. The proverb names this distortion: the neighbor’s chicken is not actually a goose. You are seeing it through the lens of your own dissatisfaction. Iranians use the saying to gently scold someone caught up in envy, or to remind themselves that the comparison is unfair. It works in any setting: family arguments, workplace gossip, social media feed scrolling. Parents say it to children comparing themselves to classmates. Adults say it to themselves when scrolling Instagram at midnight.

The proverb is also a quiet rebuke to consumer culture. Iranian elders use it against social-status anxiety, the مد روز (mod-e ruz, fashion of the day) chasing of new things because someone else has them. The chicken-to-goose framing has lasted because the cognitive bug it names is universal.

How to use it

• مرغ همسایه غازه دیگه (morgh-e hamsâye ghâz-e dige) “You know how it is, the neighbor’s chicken is a goose”
• به قول قدیمی‌ها مرغ همسایه غازه (be qol-e qadimi-hâ morgh-e hamsâye ghâz-e) “As the old folks said, the neighbor’s chicken is a goose”
• همش از دیگران تعریف می‌کنه، مرغ همسایه غازه (hamash az digarân ta’rif mikone, morgh-e hamsâye ghâz-e) “He always praises others, the neighbor’s chicken is a goose”
• مرغ همسایه برای ما همیشه غازه (morgh-e hamsâye barâye mâ hamishe ghâz-e) “The neighbor’s chicken always looks like a goose to us”

Related expressions

چشم و هم‌چشمی (cheshm-o-ham-cheshmi) is keeping up with the neighbors, social envy as a competitive sport, a major theme in Iranian middle-class life. حسادت (hasâdat) is jealousy in plain terms. غبطه (ghebte) is a softer word, admiring envy without malice. The English equivalents are “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” and the older “distant pastures look greener.” The cognitive bias the proverb describes is what social psychologists call upward social comparison.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab