داشتن

Persian

Etymology

From Middle Persian (dʾštn' /⁠dāštan⁠/, “to hold, to have”), (YHSNN-tn' /⁠dāštan⁠/), 𐫅𐫀𐫢𐫤𐫗 (dʾštn /⁠dāštan⁠/), from Old Persian 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎫𐎡𐎹 (d-a-r-y-t-i-y /⁠dārayatiy⁠/, “to hold, have”), from Proto-Iranian *dāráyati, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *dʰāráyati (“to hold, carry; to bear, support”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“to hold”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (Iran)

  (file)

• Audio (Iran)

  (file)

Verb

دَاشْتَن • (dâštan) (present stem دار (dâr))

1. to have; to possess, to own

   چهار تا بچه داریم. ― čahâr tâ bačče dârim. ― We have four children.

2. to hold
3. (auxiliary, not in very literary language) to be (doing something)

   دارم می‌روم. ― dâram mi-ravam. ― I am going.

   داشتی قدم می‌زدی. ― dâšti qadam mi-zadi. ― You were walking.

Usage notes

• Unlike most other verbs, the simple present imperfective form of داشتن does not use the durative prefix می (mi-).
• داشتن as the progressive auxiliary is normal in both speech and many text genres, but is still avoided in more conservative literary registers as a colloquialism.
• In medieval texts, the nuance of داشتن is often closer to English "to hold; to keep", and possession is usually marked by را (râ, “at”, the indirect object marker) + بودن (budan, “to be”).

Conjugation

Derived terms

References