قرمز

قرمز is a Turkic-Mongol loanword (from Old Turkic qïrmïz, ultimately related to the cochineal insect that produced the dye). It entered Persian during the Mongol-Ilkhanid period and has since outpaced the older native سرخ in everyday use, the way Old French "rouge" pushed older English "red" sideways in some contexts. The two coexist with a clear register split: قرمز everyday, سرخ literary. In football vocabulary, the Persepolis Tehran fan club is sometimes called قرمزپوشان (qermez-pushân, "the red-wearers"), but the more common nickname is سرخ‌ها (sorkh-hâ). When a learner is unsure which red to use, قرمز is almost always the safe choice.