What it means
سیم (sim) means “wire,” “cord,” or “cable,” the thin metal strand that carries electricity or holds things together. It is the default term for almost any wire in the home: a power lead, a charger cord, the wiring in the walls. When the cable is thick and insulated, like a power or data cable, people often switch to کابل (kâbel), a loanword, so سیم and کابل sit side by side, with سیم being the lighter, more general one. The word originally meant “silver,” which is why you still see it in سیمین (simin, “silvery”), and the wire sense grew out of the idea of a fine metal thread. In daily speech, though, the wire meaning is the one you will hear.
How to use it
- سیم برق رو نکش (sim-e barq ro nakesh) “don’t pull on the power cord”
- یه سیم لخت اینجا هست، مواظب باش (ye sim-e lokht injâ hast, movâzeb bâsh) “there’s a bare wire here, be careful”
- سیم شارژرم پاره شده (sim-e shârzheram pâre shode) “my charger cable is torn”
- دور باغ سیم خاردار کشیدن (dowr-e bâgh sim-e khârdâr keshidan) “they ran barbed wire around the garden”
Cultural note
In an Iranian kitchen, سیم also names the steel scouring pad, سیم ظرفشویی (sim-e zarfshuyi), the tangle of fine metal wire used to scrub stuck-on rice from the bottom of the pot, especially the prized golden تهدیگ crust. The strings of traditional instruments like the tar and setar are called سیم too, so a musician will talk about a سیم that has gone out of tune. From the wall wiring to the dish scrubber to the strings of an instrument, the same small word stretches across the whole house.