What it means
پودر لباسشویی (pudr-e lebas-shui) is laundry detergent in powder form. The compound is built from three words of different origins: پودر (pudr) is a loanword from French poudre, meaning powder, which entered Persian in the modern era along with many other French technical and household terms; لباس (lebas) means clothing, from Arabic; and شویی (shui) is the native Persian word for washing. In spoken Persian you will often hear just پودر (pudr) or پودر ماشین (pudr-e mashin) when the context of laundry is clear. The liquid alternative is مایع لباسشویی (maye-e lebas-shui).
How to use it
- پودر لباسشویی داریم؟ (pudr-e lebas-shui darim?) “Do we have laundry powder?”
- یه بسته پودر از خواربارفروشی بخر. (ye baste pudr az khar-bar-forushi bekhar.) “Buy a pack of detergent from the grocery store.”
- این لباسا نیاز به پودر بیشتری دارن. (in lebasa niyaz be pudr-e bishtari daran.) “These clothes need more detergent.”
- پودر ماشین لباسشویی تموم شده. (pudr-e mashin-e lebas-shui tamum shode.) “The washing machine detergent has run out.”
Cultural note
Powder detergent remains the dominant form of laundry product in Iranian households, partly because of price and partly because top-loading washing machines, which work well with powder, are still widely used. Brands like Persil and the domestic brand Barf (برف, meaning snow) are household names in Iran. The presence of the French word پودر in this everyday compound is a quiet reminder of the wave of French influence on Persian vocabulary that came through in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when France was the primary model for Iranian modernization.