Eating meals

One of the most popular Ramadan customs is the evening meal that breaks the day’s fast (literally “breakfast” even though it happens in the evening), called افطار (ifṭār), taken from Arabic. With that in mind, this post will be about eating food–not about food or kinds of foods, but about eating food and particularly the different meals of the day.

“to eat” = خوردَن (khūrdan)

“food” = غَذا (ghaẕā)

“meal” = also غَذا (ghaẕā), or طَعام (ṭaʿām), or (and this is more “Persian” in that it’s not an Arabic loanword) خوراکی (khūrākī)

“breakfast = صُبحانه (ṣubḥānah), from صُبح (ṣubḥ) or “morning”

“brunch” = صبحانه دُوُم (ṣubḥānah-i duvum), “second breakfast”

“lunch” = ناهار (nāhār), or ظُهرانه (ẓuhrānah), from ظُهر (ẓuhr) or “noon”

“dinner” or “supper” = شام (shām), or possibly ناهار (nāhār) if it’s early enough

“snack” = خوراکِ مُختَصَر (khūrāk-i mukhtaṣar), or “brief meal,” or مَزه (mazah), “taste” or “bite,” from the verb مَزیدَن (mazīdan) or مَزه کَردَن (mazah kardan), “to taste,” from which we get the word “meze”

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4 thoughts on “Eating meals

  1. Pingback: Eating meals | Turkish Word a Day
  2. Pingback: Eating meals | Arabic Word a Day
    • Well, there’s a lot of Arabic vocabulary in modern Persian, but not all of it is Arabic. The verbs, khurdan and mazidan, for example, are Persian.

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