What it means
تونل (tunel) is borrowed from French tunnel. It entered Persian in the twentieth century alongside modern infrastructure development. The word refers to any tunnel: a road tunnel through a mountain, an urban underpass, or a metro tunnel. Persian has no native equivalent for this concept, so تونل is the standard term across all registers and contexts.
How to use it
- تونل تاریکه، چراغ بزن. (tunel târike, cherâgh bezan.) “The tunnel is dark, turn on your lights.”
- از تونل رد شدیم خیلی سریع رسیدیم. (az tunel rad shodim kheili sari residim.) “We went through the tunnel and arrived very quickly.”
- تونل توحید زیر شهره. (tunel-e Towhid zire shahre.) “The Towhid tunnel runs under the city.”
- داره تونل میزنن اینجا. (dâre tunel mizanan injâ.) “They are drilling a tunnel here.”
Cultural note
Iran’s mountainous terrain has made tunnels an engineering necessity for both roads and railways. The Alborz and Zagros ranges are crossed by numerous tunnels, and the Tehran urban metro system relies on an extensive underground tunnel network. The Kandovan road tunnel in the Alborz mountains, cutting through a major pass north of Qazvin, is one of the most significant road tunnels in the country and dramatically shortened travel times between Tehran and the Caspian coast.