ਖੂਨ

What does khoon mean in Punjabi? Khoon (ਖੂਨ) means blood: the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins of humans and other animals, carrying oxygen and nutrients to and from the cells of the body. Khandbahale gives that definition for blood and describes blood itself as made of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma, while everyday English to Punjabi word lists give blood as ਖੂਨ.

What does khoon mean in Punjabi?

Khoon is first the body's own river, and daily speech follows it everywhere. A doctor orders a khoon test, a hospital asks for khoon daan, blood donation, and Rekhta records the same donation phrase as khoon ka atiya. When blood stops and thickens in a wound, Rekhta gives khoon-e-basta, clotted blood. The flow itself has a name too, gardish-e-khoon, blood circulation, the movement of khoon through the veins, which dictionaries record as a Persian compound.

Where does the word khoon come from?

Khoon reached Punjabi through Persian: Rekhta marks khoon-e-basta, clotted blood, as Persian in origin, and records the khoon compounds of circulation and donation in the same Persian family. Set beside it, Punjabi also keeps lahu (ਲਹੂ), an older home word for blood that survives in compounds such as lahu-rahit, bloodless, and in book titles and songs. In the clinic and the bazaar, though, khoon is the word everyone reaches for first.

Why does khoon also mean family?

Khandbahale lists the synonyms of blood as vital fluid, life force, kin and heritage, and its definitions give the second sense directly: a family or group of people connected by descent. So Punjabi speaks of apna khoon, one's own blood, for one's own children and closest kin, the tie that is carried in the body itself. The same page notes the character sense kept in hot blood and cold blood: garam khoon, hot blood, is the quick, passionate temper people forgive in the young.