پرچم

Early attestations in Persian include Anvārī and Khāqānī from the mid-1100s.

A Wanderwort of unknown origin, but probably immediately borrowed from Oghuz. The Arabic-Turkic dictionary Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, written in 1074, gives [script needed] (berčem) as the Oghuz word for "the tail of a wild ox that warriors wear on the day of battle," with [script needed] (bečkem) as the Karakhanid equivalent.^[1] Compare Wakhi bičkám (“horse or goat tail”).

The original meaning is "hair on the yak-tail standard", identical to the Turkic meaning. For unclear reasons, this word was promoted over existing words for "flag," including both the Arabic loan علم (alam) and the native word درفش (derafš), during the early twentieth-century language purification reforms.^[2] It is now the most common word for "flag".

Readings
Classical reading?	parčam
Dari reading?	parčam
Iranian reading?	parčam
Tajik reading?	parčam

Dari	پرچم
Iranian Persian
Tajik	парчам

پرچم • (parčam) (plural پرچم‌ها (parčam-hâ))

1. flag; banner

   Synonyms: درفش (derafš), بیرق (beyraq), رایت (râyat), علم (alam), لوا (levâ)

   پرچم ایران ― parčam-e irân ― the Iranian flag, the flag of Iran

2. (obsolete) yak or horse tail hair hung on the tuğ of nomadic armies
   • c. 1180, Anvārī, “Qaṣīda 128”, in دیوان انوری‎^[3]:

     در کوکبهٔ تو طرهٔ شب
     بر نیزهٔ بندگانت پرچم

     dar kawkaba-yi tu turra-yi šab
     bar nēza-yi bandagān-at parčam

     In your triumphal march, the ringlets of night's hair
     Are yak tails on the lances of your servants.

     (Classical Persian transliteration)

3. (obsolete, figurative) lock of hair fluttering over the forehead

• → Hindustani:

  Hindi: परचम (parcam)

  Urdu: پَرْچَم (parcam)

• → Azerbaijani: pərçəm
• → Ottoman Turkish: پرچم (perçem)
  • > Turkish: perçem (inherited)
  • → Romanian: perciune

Borrowed from Classical Persian پَرْچَم (parčam). First attested in c. 1510 as Middle Hindi پرچم (prcm /⁠parcam⁠/).^[1]

• (Standard Urdu) IPA^(key): /pəɾ.t͡ʃəm/
• Rhymes: -əm
• Hyphenation: پَرْ‧چَم

پَرْچَم • (parcam) m (Hindi spelling परचम)

1. flag, banner

   Synonyms: جَھنْڈَا (jhanḍā), لَوَا (lavā)

   پرچم کشائی ― parcam kuśā'ī ― Flag hoisting

Declension of پرچم
	singular	plural
direct	پَرْچَم (parcam)	پَرْچَم (parcam)
oblique	پَرْچَم (parcam)	پَرْچَموں (parcamõ)
vocative	پَرْچَم (parcam)	پَرْچَمو (parcamo)

• “پرچم”, in ریخْتَہ لُغَت (rexta luġat) - Rekhta Dictionary [Urdu dictionary with meanings in Hindi & English], Noida, India: Rekhta Foundation, 2024.
• Fallon, Platts, Qureshi, Shakespear (2024) “پرچم”, in Digital Dictionaries of South Asia