قطره

قطره (qatre) is one of those small, useful words that does double duty: the drop itself, and the unit you count drops in.

What it actually means

قطره means “a drop” of any liquid. It works two ways. First as a regular noun: the drop on the tip of a leaf, the drop falling from a faucet. Second as a classifier, the way English uses “a drop of” before liquids: یک قطره آب (yek qatre âb) “a drop of water”, دو قطره خون (do qatre khun) “two drops of blood”. The word is also a common name for medicinal drops at the pharmacy: قطره چشم (qatre cheshm) means “eye drops”, قطره گوش (qatre gush) is “ear drops”. So when an Iranian asks the pharmacist for قطره, context decides whether they want eye drops, ear drops, or nasal drops.

How to say it

How to use it

• یک قطره آب بریز. · yek qatre âb berize. · Pour a drop of water (classifier use).
• قطره چشم خریدم. · qatre cheshm kharidam. · I bought eye drops (compound noun).
• قطره قطره دریا میشه. · qatre qatre daryâ mishe. · Drop by drop, an ocean forms (proverb).

Classifier vs noun

Persian uses قطره two ways. As a regular noun, it takes plurals and possessives like any other noun: قطره‌ها (qatre-hâ) “the drops”, قطره‌های باران (qatre-hâ-ye bârân) “raindrops”. As a classifier, it sits between a number and the liquid: یک قطره شیر (yek qatre shir) “one drop of milk”, سه قطره روغن (se qatre roghan) “three drops of oil”. Persian classifiers (شمارشگر, shomâreshgar) are not optional in this position. You cannot say یک شیر to mean “one drop of milk” because یک شیر means “one milk” (a serving) or “one lion”. The classifier disambiguates.

Common pairings

• یک قطره (yek qatre) “one drop” (classifier)
• قطره چشم (qatre cheshm) “eye drops”
• قطره قطره (qatre qatre) “drop by drop”
• قطره آخر (qatre-ye âkhar) “the last drop”

Where it comes from

قطره is Arabic, from the root ق-ط-ر which carries the sense of dripping, distilling, falling in droplets. Persian borrowed it directly and kept the Arabic spelling. The same root produced قطار (qatâr) “a row, a train” (originally a string of camels in a line, like droplets in sequence) and قطران (qatrân) “tar”. The drop-by-drop sense survives in the Persian proverb قطره قطره دریا میشه, which Iranians use to encourage patience: small efforts add up.

Related

You’ll see this word with classifier siblings like دانه (dâne) “piece, grain” and تا (tâ) “unit”. For Persian classifier rules, see the numbers-and-measure glossary cluster.