Moon, Sun and Stars in Farsi: 21 Nature Words

Short answer: The moon in Farsi is mâh and the sun is khorshid. Mâh also means month, so you work out which one from the sentence. A star is setâre and the sky is âsmân. The tables below give 21 nature words in four groups: sky, land, water, and plants and gardens.

If you only learn two words from this page, make them mâh and khorshid. They're short, they're everywhere, and once you know them you'll start spotting them inside other words and names.

I've grouped the rest the way you'd meet them outside: what's above you, what's under your feet, the water, and the green things. Most rows have a short example so you can hear the word inside a real phrase.

Sky and Space in Farsi

Land and Mountains

In the Shahnameh, the tyrant Zahhak is chained inside Mount Damavand.

Water

Plants and Gardens

For the animals that live in all this scenery, see Persian animal names.

Mâh: one word for the moon and the month

The table gives mâh as both moon and month, and that is how people really use it. Mâh kâmel ast means the moon is full. Put a number in front of the same word and you're counting months.

You don't need a second word to tell them apart. The sentence does the work, the same way English uses one word for a bank by the river and a bank with your money in it.

The sun, the stars and the sky in everyday speech

The Iranian calendar is a solar calendar, so the year itself is tied to khorshid. Khorshid is also a given name, used for both girls and boys.

Setâre carries luck with it. When someone's fortune is rising, people say their star is high.

Then there's the cloud. An old proverb says the moon does not stay behind the abr for long, meaning the truth comes out in the end. It's a lovely one to have ready when a secret finally surfaces.

Gardens and trees

The English word paradise goes back to an Old Persian word for a walled enclosure, the same idea behind the classic Persian garden, bâgh-e irâni: a rectangle split into four by water channels with a pavilion in the middle.

On Sizdah Bedar, the 13th day of Nowruz, families head outdoors and picnic under the derakht. You can read more about it in our Sizdah Bedar guide.

Get it wrong and the worst that happens is a warm laugh and a story they’ll tell for years. Get it right — refuse the tea twice, accept on the third — and you’ll watch a face open up. You didn’t just speak Persian. You played the game.