Questions tagged [etymology]
Etymology is the history of the origin of words and phrases.
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When transliterating English words to Korean, why does the first F become a ㅎ?
This is one of the questions from the definition phase and I would like to get asked in the main site. (It has also be asked and answered in Linguistics.se)
When transliterating English words to ...
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Why is the Korean name 이 often Romanised as 'Lee'?
This was a question from the definition stage of this proposal
Why is the Korean name 이 written as Lee in English?
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How can a non-native Korean speaker say "Pure Korean" or "Native Korean" in Korean?
When talking about Korean word origin, there are "Pure/Native Korean" words, "Sino-Korean" (i.e. Hanja) words, and of course other origins like English. I am wondering how to say "Pure Korean" or "...
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Why don't Koreans call their country 'Korea'?
The Wikipedia article on Korea states that South Koreans call Korea 한국, while north Koreans call it 조선. Do 'Korea', '한국', and '조선' all refer to the same thing? If so, how did the three different names ...
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Why is "outside" used for the maternal side?
We can use 외할아버지 to refer to a maternal grandfather.
Here 외 comes from hanja 外, meaning "outside". It is the same 외 that is used in 외국어 (foreign language), for example.
What is the logic behind ...
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Origin of dictionary form (-다)
What is the origin of the basic -다 "dictionary" form for verbs and adjectives? Does it have any meaning on its own? Is it ever used in actual conversations or writing? There are forms that are similar ...
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Etymology of '가짜' and '진짜'
'가짜' means:
거짓을 참인 것처럼 꾸민 것. (Literally) A lie, untruth, fake disguised as truth.
'진짜' means:
본뜨거나 거짓으로 만들어 낸 것이 아닌 참된 것. (Literally) A real thing that is not copied or fabricated.
'가' ...
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How to spot English loanwords and Hanja words in a text?
While studying Japanese, it's very helpful that nearly all words of foreign origin are marked by using katakana (a syllabary separate from the usual mix of hiragana and Chinese characters) and words ...
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Where did Korean get its reading of 秒?
The Korean reading for "second" (of which there are 60 in a minute) is 초.
Is this a native word unrelated to 秒, or is it somehow a reading of 秒? The expected reading would be 묘 and I don't know of ...
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Etymology and Differences, '나래' and '날개'
There is a sentence
희망의 나래를 편다. (Literally) Spread (Open) your wings of hope.
And according to Naver Korean Dictionary, 나래 means
흔히 문학 작품 따위에서, ‘날개’를 이르는 말. ‘날개’보다 부드러운 어감을 준다.
How are these ...
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"며느리도 모른다" etymology
As indicated in the article, '혼전 또 혼전' 5강 싸움.. '이젠 며느리도 모른다' (Who will get a wild card in baseball, nobody knows), "며느리도 모른다." is broadly used in Korean to mean
Nobody can know (Nobody knows).
The ...
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갈매기살 (lit. seagull meat) pork cut name origin
In Korean there is a cut of pork called 갈매기살, which literally translates into "seagull meat." The first time I heard this, I was shocked and thought they had actual seagull meat on the menu. I was ...
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Are 손가락 and 발가락 related to 숟가락 and 젓가락?
Does 가락 have any meaning by itself? Are 손가락 and 발가락 related to 숟가락 and 잣가락? I can imagine 숟가락 meaning 'round finger (extension)'and 젓가락 meaning 'long finger (extension)'. At least I'll use that to ...
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Etymology of '말발'
'말발' is a quite interesting word and according to the linked Naver Korean dictionary, it means:
듣는 이로 하여금 그 말을 따르게 할 수 있는 말의 힘.
We often hear "말발이 서다" and "말발을 세우다" and what is the etymology of ...
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Etymology of '띄어쓰기 (word spacing)'
There are some Korean words which use 'ㅢ' in them such as '띄어쓰기 (word spacing)'.
What is the etymology of '띄어쓰기'? Why can't it be written as '띠어쓰기' and is there any difference between '띄어쓰기' and '...
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Etymology of '괜찮다'
The adjective '괜찮다' means:
형용사 (adjective)
별로 나쁘지 않고 보통 이상이다. Not bad and above average.
When you look at the adjective '편찮다', you can know it is from another adjective '편하다' as '편찮다' is a ...
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Etymology of Native Korean Numbers and Related Words
So I collected some native Korean numbers and their old forms into a few columns. The last two are words specifically for days.
The Roots column is what I observe to be common across the row, not ...
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'센스' vs 'sense'
In Korean, I often hear phrases like '저 남자 참 센스 있다.' which literally translates to 'That man has a real "SENSE"'. However, as far as I understand, although '센스' is a transliteration of the English ...
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Etymology for 마찬가지 (just the same)
I have a terrible time remembering 마찬가지. Usually I want to use it and kind of remember what the word sounds like, but I can't remember the exact characters.
Perhaps understanding the etymology of ...
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Is '양반 (兩班)' a sexist word?
This question was inspired by @topomorto's recent question, If a wife works and her husband stays at home, are 집사람 and 바깥분 still appropriate for “wife” and “husband” respectively? and my answer saying ...
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A question about ㄴ/은
How comes that ㄴ/은 expresses present for adjectives and past for verbs? I am particularly interested in etymological reasons from a grammatical point of view.
For example, in Japanese the auxiliary (...
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Can I use 찮다 to express 지 않다
I refer to this question:
Etymology of '괜찮다'
So words like 귀찮다, 괜찮다, or 편찮다 are actually just the shortened form of 귀하지 않다, 괜하지 않다 and 편하지 않다. And the general rule is, 찮다 is the shortened ...
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Why does the word for kindness, 친절 (親切), include a character meaning 'cut off; to disconnect'?
친(親) - relatives, parents; intimate
절(切) - to cut; to slice; to disconnect
How does the second character relate to the meaning of 친절?
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What is the background of the expression "쩐다!"?
Today I learned about the expression "쩐다!" as a more colorful way of expressing "좋다!"
What exactly is the background of this word and how is it different from saying "좋다!"?
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What does "金三 2:33" mean in etymology?
In the 뉴에이스 국어사전 included with the iOS/MacOS Dictionary app, I noticed the etymology for the word 함부로 showed:
〔➙ᄒᆞᆫ보로(金三 2:33)＞함부로〕
What does the 金三 2:33 mean?
Looking up the same word in Naver, ...
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Is there a reason for there to be so many words ending with ㅇ+이 (like 고양이, 올챙이 etc)?
I´ve noticed a pattern of many words ending with ㅇ+ 이
고양이
올챙이
호랑이
달팽이
...and the list goes on. Is there any etymological reason why we have so many of these words? And is there a name for that?
Also,...
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What is written in that big bracket?
I was looking up the Korean word for “together”, when I came across its entry in the pure Korean dictionary on my iPhone. There’s this big bracket which seems to provide the etymology of the word.
I ...
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What's the etymology of 점심 (點心) meaning 'lunch'?
The characters for 점심 (點心) mean something like:
點 - 'point' or 'dot'心 - 'heart'
Those characters have other meanings too, but I can't see from any of them how the characters come to make a word that ...
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Why in Korean is 언니 used for female by female?
My Chinese friend just used 欧尼, and I looked up the meaning and found out that in Korean, 언니 is used by female, to refer to another woman who is older than the caller.
However, the baidu page also ...
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How did the Hanja-rooted terms for sports such as '축구','야구', '농구' come into being?
As football, baseball, and basketball are all relatively modern things, I might have expected their Korean terms to be transliterations of foreign terms (in the same way that the words 'taxi', '...
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What is the morphemic analysis of "헤엄치다"?
I am curious whether 헤엄치다 and 헤다 are related. However, if they really are related, where does that 어 in 헤엄치다 come from?
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What is the correct etymology of 백정?
According to the 백정 Wikipedia article, the etymology of 백정 is:
It consists of "Baek"(Korean: 백, Hanja: 白), which means 'no', and "Jeong(Korean: 정, Hanja: 丁)", which means a person without land.
In ...
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What is the origin of 바가지를 쓰다?
Where did the idiomatic phrase 바가지(를) 쓰다 (to pay through the nose; to pay for a ripoff) come from? 바가지 itself is orginally a gourd or plastic bowl, but what is the connection between a bowl and a ...
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How come 네 and 아니다 are different "parts of speech?"
"네" and "아니요" are often paired together as opposites ("yes"/"no").
However, I just noticed they are different parts of speech. What I mean is: 아니요 has a verb stem that you can add Korean verb endings ...
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Etymology of 한눈팔다
What is the etymology of 한눈팔다? I remember it as "one eye sold", which works great as a mnemonic device, but wondering if that's the actual etymology too.
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Money Drinking Hippo? What is a 돈먹는하마?
On Twitter, #돈먹는하마 is trending. I know they are talking about post-olympic stadiums costing a lot of money. What is this use of "hippo/하마" in this phrase?
What is this use of "hippo/하마" in this ...
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What's the meaning of 패(牌) in the word 깡패 (gangster)?
The second character of 깡패 is 牌 - which I thought meant 'signboard', 'card'. Arch Chinese gives the meaning as
cards, game pieces, signboard, placard, plate, tablet
How is this relevant to the ...
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Does the prefix '단' generally mean something like 'awaited' or 'desired'?
I was asking a Korean friend called 단비 what her name meant in Hanja, and she surprised me by explaining that it was a pure Korean name, meaning a rain (비) that has been long-awaited (from naver: 꼭 필요한 ...
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Why does "large hill" make sense as the translation for 대구(大邱)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu states that the name of the City means, literally 'large hill' - from 大 (large) and 邱 (hill).
However, the same page also states:
Daegu sits in a basin ...
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Is it pure coincidence that the words for "reunification" and "German" are so similar (통일 and 독일)?
I once saw a documentary about Korean reunification with voice-over translation, and I wondered why they kept metioning Germany (until I realized what it was that they actually said:통일)
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Why is “puppy” a cuss word in korean?
I know that a translation of the word “puppy” can be an insult/cuss word, but does anyone know why exactly?
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What's the etymology of the expression '맙소사 !'
Apparently '맙소사!' means something like 'oh my God!'
Does it refer to 'God' literally? I thought the words for God was '신'.
What's the etymology and usage of this expression?
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The true meaning of Korean workplace titles
I was referring to words such as 사원, 주임, 대리, 과장, 차장, 부장, 실장, 수석부장, 이사, 상무, 전무, 사장, 회장
So it was always bothering me what the true meaning of these workplace titles mean and what's their etymology.
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Why are 댜 뱌 챠 탸 퍄 햐 됴 툐 not used?
I am learning Hangeul and found this image on the Internet (I cannot locate the original source):
It seems like some of the syllable blocks are greyed out, which I think means it's not used. There's ...
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Etymology of 하십시오체 sentence endings
What is the etymology of the 하십시오체 sentence endings?
~습니다
~습니까
~읍시오
Some conjecture on my part: The spelling of the indicative and interrogative endings makes me think that 습 and 니다/니까 were once ...
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Etymology of '하염없이' - was there ever such a thing as a '하염'?
하염하염없이 is translated by naver dic as blankly, vacantly:
그는 하염없이 벽만 바라보았다 -
He stared blankly at the wall.
or ceaselessly:
하염없이 걷다 -
walk endlessly
A formation of X-없이 would normally ...
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What does 꿈치 in 팔꿈치/앞꿈치/뒤꿈치 mean?
The dictionaries I have access to, either list no etymology or simply ‘Of Native Korean origin’ for the words listed in the question. Their definitions are as follows:
팔꿈치: elbow
앞꿈치: in the ITF ...
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What is the etymology of the question ending `ㄴ가`/`는가`/`ㄹ가(ㄹ까)`?
Since for the ending ㄴ가/는가/ㄹ가(ㄹ까), there is an obligatorily incorporated "relativiser-looking" particle (ㄴ/는/ㄹ), I am wondering whether this expression has evolved from a "relative ...
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Where does 나름 come from?
The word 나름, as in ~기 나름이다 or 나름대로, appears to be formed by nominalizing 나르다. Is this the correct etymology or does 나름 come from something else?
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Why didn't Korean rulers ever use the title 황제 (皇帝) until the Korean Empire in the late 19th century?
Ever since Qin Shi Huangdi ("First Huangdi of the Qin") made up the title 皇帝 (huangdi), Vietnamese and Japanese rulers quite consistently claimed to be "emperors" as well. The ...
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