PlayInfoBox

Home /Education /Korean Words That Made It Into English Dictionaries

Korean Words That Made It Into English Dictionaries

Tap a word to see its meaning and background.

Kimchi

A fermented vegetable dish, most commonly made with cabbage, that was one of the earliest Korean food words to be widely adopted into English, now listed in most major English dictionaries.

Hangul

The name of the Korean writing system, invented in the 15th century under King Sejong, used in English specifically to refer to this alphabet rather than the Korean language as a whole.

Chaebol

A term referring to large, typically family-controlled South Korean business conglomerates, such as Samsung and Hyundai, now used in English-language business and economics writing to describe this distinctly Korean corporate structure.

Hallyu (Korean Wave)

A term referring to the global rise in popularity of South Korean culture, including music, television dramas, and film, that has been increasingly adopted into English-language media coverage over the past two decades.

Aegyo

A term describing a deliberately cute, endearing way of speaking or acting, often seen in Korean entertainment, that has entered English usage primarily through K-pop and Korean drama fan communities.

Mukbang

A term for a genre of online video in which a host eats a large quantity of food while interacting with viewers, originating in South Korea and later becoming a globally recognized English loanword as the format spread internationally.

A sign of growing global cultural influence

Dictionaries generally add loanwords once they see sustained, widespread use in everyday English writing and speech β€” the growing number of Korean loanwords formally recognized by major English dictionaries in recent years is often cited as a direct reflection of South Korean culture's rapidly expanding global visibility and influence.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a foreign word officially get added to an English dictionary?

Dictionary editors and lexicographers continuously monitor how words are actually used in real-world English writing and speech, and typically add a new word once it has demonstrated consistent, widespread usage over a sustained period, rather than through any single official approval process.

Are there other Korean words commonly used in English that aren't officially in dictionaries yet?

Yes β€” many additional Korean words related to food, entertainment, and culture are widely understood and used within specific English-speaking communities online, even though they haven't yet met the threshold of sustained mainstream usage required for formal dictionary inclusion.