What it means
سهراهی (se-râhi) literally means “three-way” and is the colloquial word for a power strip or multi-socket adapter, the device that lets you plug several things into one wall socket. Both elements of the word are native Persian: سه (se, three) and راه (râh, way or road). The name originally described a three-socket splitter, but in everyday speech it now refers to any power strip regardless of how many sockets it has. A close synonym in more technical contexts is چندراهی (chand-râhi, multi-way), but سهراهی is by far the more common colloquial form.
How to use it
- سهراهی داری؟ پریزا کمه. (se-râhi dâri? pariza kame.) “Do you have a power strip? There aren’t enough sockets.”
- سهراهی رو بزن به برق. (se-râhi ro bezan be barq.) “Plug the power strip in.”
- همه چیز رو زدم به سهراهی. (hame chiz ro zadam be se-râhi.) “I plugged everything into the power strip.”
- سهراهی سوخت. (se-râhi sukht.) “The power strip burned out.”
Cultural note
Iranian homes often have fewer wall sockets per room than more recently built housing in Europe, so سهراهی is a genuinely essential household item rather than a convenience accessory. The word illustrates how Persian handles new objects by repurposing native vocabulary rather than borrowing: instead of adopting a foreign term, speakers extended راه (way, path) into the electrical domain to describe something that splits one path into several. The same pattern appears in سهراهی لولهکشی (se-râhi-ye lule-keshi), a plumbing T-junction, showing the word works across domains.