What it means
پیشواز رفتن (pishvaz-raftan) is the verb for performing pishvaz, the welcome ritual. You go out to meet the arriving person: down the stairs, to the gate, to the curb, to the airport. The verb names the motion toward the guest, the host crossing toward them instead of waiting for them to cross toward the host.
The verb is everyday and unmarked. You hear it in family group chats coordinating who is going to the airport, in casual sentences about a neighbor’s visit, in news coverage of returning athletes met by crowds.
Compound verb structure
Compound of پیشواز (pishvaz, the welcoming) plus رفتن (raftan, to go). Unlike most Persian compounds which use کردن (kardan, to do), pishvaz pairs with raftan because the act is fundamentally a movement: going out to meet. The construction parallels other motion compounds like پیاده رفتن (piyade-raftan, to go on foot).
Conjugation follows raftan: present miravam or short miram (I go), past raftam (I went), imperative boro (go). The pishvaz piece stays fixed: pishvaz miravam, pishvaz raftam, pishvaz boro.
How it gets used
The verb takes a possessive on the guest: pishvaz-e mehmun raftam (I went to meet the guest). The eh links the noun pishvaz to the person being welcomed. You can stack it: pishvaz-e babam ta forudgah raftim (we went to the airport to meet my dad).
Refusing to pishvaz when expected is a flag. A returning relative who is not met at the airport reads the absence: someone is angry, sick, or no longer counts them as family.
Pair with badraqe-kardan
The verb’s natural counterpart is badraqe-kardan, to see someone off. Together they bracket the visit. Hosts who pishvaz on arrival typically also badraqe on departure. The symmetry is part of the courtesy.
What foreign learners miss
The most common mistake is treating arrival as the start of the visit. In Iranian time, the visit starts with pishvaz: the moments before the door opens, the small motion of the host toward the guest. Skip pishvaz and you have skipped the opening act. The dinner that follows feels shorter, less warm, less anchored. The ritual is not optional packaging; it is part of the visit itself.
Examples
fardaa baayad bram pishvaz-e khaalam.
Tomorrow I have to go meet my aunt.
فردا باید برم پیشواز خالهام.
kheili khoshhal shod ke pishvaz-esh raftim.
He was so happy we went out to meet him.
خیلی خوشحال شد که پیشوازش رفتیم.
References
ZabanYar is a Persian app built for heritage learners, the people who can speak a little but want to read, write, and really get it. Free early access at launch.
Join the waitlist →