Khordan (خوردن)
This is a highly used verb and goes with a lot of words to communicate different meanings. By itself it means ‘to eat’. But you’d be surprised to know that in spoken Persian, Iranians use ‘khordan’ even when they mean ‘to drink’, which is ‘noushidan’ (نوشیدن). Noushidan is only ever used in formal and written form, so better not use it while speaking if you don’t want to sound ‘weird’.
So you’ll hear people say ‘aab mikhouri?’ (آب میخوری؟) (wanna ‘eat’ some water?’) instead of ‘abb minoushi?’
Other things that you ‘eat’ in Persian:
you eat air (havaa khordan هوا خوردن — which means to get some fresh air)
you eat cold (sarmaa khordan سرما خوردن — which means to catch a cold)
you eat swing (taab khordan تاب خوردن — which means to swing)
If you say something has been ‘eating dust’ (khaak khordan خاک خوردن), you mean it has been gathering dust.
Rakab khordan رکب خوردن means to be deceived.
Zakhm khordan زخم خوردن means to be injured.
** in Persian, there are a number of compound verbs and ‘khordan’ is one of them. Learning them will give you an opportunity to make a long list of new expressions.
