What it means
پررو (porru) means cheeky, brazen, or shameless. The word is purely Persian: پر (por) means full, and رو (ru) means face. A porru person is literally full-faced, someone who shows their face without shame or restraint. Its direct opposite is کمرو (kamru), meaning shy or timid, built from کم (kam, little) and رو (ru, face). In practice, پررو is a very common colloquial insult or playful jab, used when someone pushes their luck, asks for too much, or behaves without embarrassment. Its register is informal: you will hear it constantly in casual conversation but rarely in writing or formal speech.
How to use it
- این بچه خیلی پررویی! (in bachche kheili porruyi!) “This kid is so cheeky!”
- پررو نشو، بار اول بهت نه گفتم. (porru nasho, bâr avval behet na goftam.) “Don’t get brazen, I told you no the first time.”
- چقدر پررو بود که اومد دوباره کمک خواست. (cheghadr porru bood ke umad dobâre komak khâst.) “How shameless of him to come and ask for help again.”
- پررویی داری ها! (porrui dâri hâ!) “You’ve got some nerve!”
Cultural note
In Iranian social culture, آبرو (âbru, honor or face) and حیا (hayâ, modesty or shame) are deeply valued, which makes پررو a pointed criticism: the person literally lacks the face-consciousness that good manners require. The word is used freely between friends as teasing and between strangers as a rebuke. The morphological pair پررو and کمرو is a clean example of how Persian builds personality adjectives by quantifying the face, a concept central to social identity in Persian-speaking cultures.