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The meanings of "rough, low quality" and "last, final" feel UNrelated to me. What semantic field underlies these meanings? Just because something is "last, final" doesn't mean it's "rough, low quality". English has the adage "save the best for last"!

막 - Wiktionary

Etymology 1

Contraction of 마구 (magu).

Adverb

(mak)

  1. Synonym of 마구 (magu, “carelessly, wildly”)

Prefix

막— (mak-)

  1. rough, careless, of low quality

Etymology 2

Prefix

막— (mak-)

  1. last, final
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    They are unrelated. The "last", "final" meaning comes from 마지막.
    – Absol
    Commented Jun 5, 2021 at 20:05
  • They are homographs, different words. Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 1:44

1 Answer 1

2

They are different words, but coincidentally have the same form / pronunciation. This is why they're listed as "Etymology 1" and "Etymology 2": having different origins (etymologies). This is called '동음이의어' in Korean, or 'homonyms' in English. An example in English would be 'bark' (the sound of a dog) and 'bark' (the skin of a tree).

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