The following are some of the most common suffixes in Persian.
• “ی” (makes adjectives from nouns)
علم (science)
خوردن (to eat)
اروپا (Europe)
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+
+
ی
ی
ی
=
=
=
علمی (scientific)
خوردنی (edible, food)
اروپایی (European)
• “ی” (makes nouns from adjectives)
خوب (good)
سفید (white)
خسته (tired)
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+
+
ی
ی
ی
=
=
=
خوبی (goodness)
سفیدی (whiteness)
خستگی (tiredness)
• “گر” (produces a job name from a noun)
آهن (iron)
کار (work)
گزارش (report)
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+
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گر
گر
گر
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=
=
آهنگر (blacksmith)
کارگر (labourer)
گزارشگر (reporter)
• “ـیّت” (similar to the English suffix “-ity”)
انسان (human)
مالک (owner)
ظرف ((container, dish(es)
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+
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ـیّت
ـیّت
ـیّت
=
=
=
انسانیّت (humanity)
مالکیّت (ownership)
ظرفیّت (capacity)
This is an Arabic suffix and the main nouns used with it are usually Arabic.
• “ه” (produces a participle from the past stem of a verb)
شکست (past stem of "to break")
مُرد (past stem of "to die")
کُشت (past stem of "to kill")
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+
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ه
ه
ه
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=
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شکسته (broken)
مُرده (dead)
کُشته (killed)
A look at the last two examples perfectly shows that these words can take both objective and subjective meanings. For transitive verbs, in which an objective sense is also possible for the participle, it sometimes becomes difficult to understand in which sense the word is being used.
• “ه” (produces a noun from the present stem of a verb)
خند (خندیدن) (to laugh)
اندیش (اندیشیدن) (to think)
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+
ه
ه
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=
خنده (laughter)
اندیشه (thought)
This group of words is less common. Note that the verb in the second example is a literary verb and the compound verb “فکر کردن” is usually used instead in today’s Persian.
• “نده” (similar to the English suffix “–er”, generally used with present stem of verbs”)