A device consisting of a pair of glass or plastic lenses worn in a frame
in front of the eyes to help correct imperfect vision
or protect the eyes from light, dust, and the like.
Also called glasses, spectacles.
Etymology (EN): → eye; → glass.
Etymology (PE): Eynak, probably related to
âyené “mirror,” âbginé “glass”
(Mid.Pers. êwênag “mirror,” from *âdênak,
from Proto-Iranian *ādayanaka-, from prefix
ā- + the root
of Av. dā(y)- “to see,” didāti “sees”
(cf. Mod.Pers. didan “to see,” Mid.Pers.
ditan “to see, regard, catch sight of, contemplate, experience;” O.Pers.
dī- “to see;”
Skt. dhī- “to perceive, think, ponder; thought, reflection, meditation,”
dādhye; Gk. dedorka “have seen”)
- suffix -ak). Other obsolete Pers. equivalents for eyeglasses are
cešm-e farangi “Frank/European eye” and âyene-ye farangi
“Frank/European glass.” And it seems that the oldest mention of eyeglasses in Pers. is
by the poet Jâmi (1414-1492), who calls it farangi šišé
“Frank/European glass.”
These paradigms support the relation between eynak and âyené. As for the
more recent term sam’ak “hearing aid,” which is invoked to relate
eynak to eyn (Ar. ‘ayn “eye”), it may have been coined
on the model of eynak supposing that eyn means “eye.”
