What it means
سرطان (saratân) is a direct borrowing from Arabic سَرَطَان (saratân), a word that originally meant crab. The connection to cancer mirrors exactly what happened in Greek and Latin, where the physician Galen described tumors with branching veins that looked like a crab’s legs. Persian adopted the Arabic form whole, and today سرطان covers every type of malignant cancer: سرطان پستان (breast cancer), سرطان ریه (lung cancer), سرطان خون (leukemia, literally blood cancer). There is no colloquial substitute in everyday Iranian Persian, so the same word is used in both clinical and casual speech.
How to use it
- داداشم سرطان داره. (Dâdâsham saratân dâre.) “My brother has cancer.”
- دکتر گفت تومور خوشخیمه، سرطان نیست. (Doktor goft tumor khoshkhime, saratân nist.) “The doctor said the tumor is benign, it is not cancer.”
- سیگار کشیدن خطر سرطان ریه رو بالا میبره. (Sigâr keshidan khatar-e saratân-e riye ro bâlâ mibare.) “Smoking raises the risk of lung cancer.”
- بعد از شیمیدرمانی حالش خوبتر شده. (Ba’d az shimi-darmâni hâlash khubtar shode.) “After chemotherapy, his condition improved.”
Cultural note
Cancer carries significant social weight in Iran, where a diagnosis is often kept within the immediate family and not shared broadly due to fear of stigma or upsetting others. This silence can delay support networks forming around the patient. In recent years, public health campaigns on Iranian state television and social media have worked to normalize early screening conversations, particularly for سرطان پستان and سرطان روده. Charities run by diaspora communities abroad have also been active in raising awareness among Iranian communities outside Iran.