Korean

How to spell korean

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce korean

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does korean mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Korea, its people, or its language.
2. nounA person from Korea, or the language spoken there.

Korean in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves authentic korean barbecue.

• noun

  He is learning to read and write korean in his spare time.

• adjective

  She signed up for a korean language course at the college.

• noun

  Many a korean settled in the city during the last century.

Where does korean come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is formed from the place name Korea plus the English suffix -an, which marks something as belonging to or coming from a place. The country name itself reached European languages through the Goryeo dynasty, the medieval kingdom whose name (often romanised as Koryo) gave us 'Korea'; the spelling with a K rather than a C became settled in English usage. The element -an, ultimately from the Latin -anus, is the same ending found in 'American', 'European', and 'Mexican', where it consistently turns a place name into a word for a person, a language, or an adjective. English adopted the form Korean in this way from around the seventeenth century as European contact with the peninsula grew. The spelling trap lies in the -ean ending: the e and a sit together but are pronounced as two separate sounds, which writers sometimes reorder or drop.

How the word is built

• Korea (the country name)
• -an (suffix meaning 'belonging to' or 'of')