What it means
قیل و قال (qil-o-qâl) is borrowed directly from Arabic, where قِيلَ (qila) is the passive past of قَالَ (qâla, “he said”) and قَالَ (qâla) is the active past. The pair together evokes a back-and-forth of talk, rumor, and noise. In Persian it means a noisy argument or fuss, idle talk, or general commotion where people are speaking but nothing is being resolved. It is used in colloquial speech and is fully naturalized in Persian. A related expression is سر و صدا (sar o sedâ, “noise and clamor”), which is more neutral; قیل و قال implies a futile or annoying quality to the noise.
How to use it
- قیل و قالِ همسایهها دیوونهام کرده. (qil-o-qâl-e hamsâyehâ divuneam karde.) “The neighbors’ racket is driving me crazy.”
- بدون قیل و قال قبول کرد. (bedune qil-o-qâl qabul kard.) “He accepted without any fuss.”
- این همه قیل و قال برای چیه؟ مسئله که خیلی سادهست. (in hame qil-o-qâl barâye chiye? mas’ale ke kheyli sâdeast.) “What is all this fuss about? The matter is quite simple.”
- جلسه پر از قیل و قال بود ولی نتیجهای نداشت. (jalase por az qil-o-qâl bud vali natije’i nadâsht.) “The meeting was full of noise and argument but produced no result.”
Cultural note
Arabic rhetorical and grammatical terms entered Persian in large numbers after the Islamic conquest, and قیل و قال was originally used in classical Persian to refer to the unreliable chain of hearsay, literally the “it-was-saids and he-saids” of rumor. Over time it shifted from a scholarly term for dubious attribution to an everyday word for pointless noise. Today it appears freely in conversation, news reporting, and even formal commentary to describe unproductive public debate.