پیراهن (pirâhan) is the standard Persian word for shirt: simple, neutral, used a thousand times a week in any Iranian household.
What it actually means
پیراهن means “shirt” in the broad sense: any garment for the upper body that buttons or pulls over. Iranians use it for the men’s button-up dress shirt (پیراهن مردانه, pirâhan-e mardâne), the women’s tunic-style dress (پیراهن زنانه, pirâhan-e zanâne), and the traditional long shirt worn at home or for prayer. Unlike English, the word does not split into shirt versus dress versus tunic. Context and adjectives narrow the meaning. The plain phrase پیراهن سفید (pirâhan-e sefid) “a white shirt” sits in classical Persian poetry, in wedding photos, and in funeral images of mothers wearing white in mourning. The word carries everyday weight without ceremony.
How to say it
Formal
pirâhan
“shirt”
پیراهن
Colloquial (Tehrani)
pirhan
often clipped, the long â flattened
پیرهن
In writing you see پیراهن. In Tehran speech the middle vowel often gets dropped, and you hear پیرهن (pirhan). Both spellings show up online, and neither is wrong.
How to use it
- پیراهنم را اتو کردم. · pirâhan-am râ otu kardam. · I ironed my shirt.
- یک پیراهن سفید بپوش. · yek pirâhan-e sefid bepush. · Wear a white shirt.
- این پیراهن قشنگه. · in pirhan ghashang-e. · This shirt is pretty (colloquial).
Common pairings
- پیراهن مردانه (pirâhan-e mardâne) “men’s shirt”
- پیراهن سفید (pirâhan-e sefid) “white shirt”
- پیراهن آستین کوتاه (pirâhan-e âstin kutâh) “short-sleeved shirt”
- پیراهن مشکی (pirâhan-e meshki) “black shirt” (worn during Muharram mourning)
Cultural note
Color of the پیراهن signals event in Iran. White at weddings, black through Muharram and the forty days of mourning, sober dark blues and grays at the office. The phrase پیراهن عثمان (pirâhan-e Osmân, “the shirt of Osman”) is a classic political idiom: holding up a victim’s shirt as a banner to inflame a crowd. It comes from early Islamic history and still gets thrown around in modern Iranian political commentary when someone weaponizes a tragedy. Knowing the literal word opens the door to that whole layer of allusion.
Related
You’ll see this word together with سفید (sefid) “white” and سیاه (siyâh) “black”. For more on Persian clothing vocabulary, see the home-and-living glossary cluster.
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