What it means
قرص (qors) means pill or tablet, the solid pressed form of medicine you swallow. The word comes from Arabic, where قُرْص originally means a flat round disc or a round flat piece of something, such as قرص الشمس (the disc of the sun). Persian borrowed it to refer to the compressed round shape of a tablet. At a pharmacy, if you ask for قرص, the pharmacist will understand you are asking for the tablet form of a medicine, as opposed to a syrup or capsule.
How to use it
- یه قرص مسکن دارین؟ (ye qors-e mosakken dârin?) “do you have a painkiller tablet?”
- روزی سه تا قرص بخور (ruzi se tâ qors bokhor) “take three tablets a day”
- قرصم تموم شد (qorsam tamum shod) “I ran out of my tablets”
- این قرص رو با آب بخور (in qors ro bâ âb bokhor) “take this pill with water”
Cultural note
In Iran, many over-the-counter medicines are sold as قرص without a prescription, and pharmacies are often the first stop for common complaints like headaches or colds. Iranians frequently refer to any solid oral medicine as قرص regardless of its exact pharmaceutical form, so the word functions as a general term in everyday speech. Asking the pharmacist directly for a قرص by symptom rather than by drug name is a very common practice.