I’ve mentioned before when introducing Sino-Korean and Hanja-based words that the English equivalent is similar to seeing “un” in a word and knowing it means “not __”, this Hanja we are looking at is almost the exact same!
不 means “not” and is very much like not, non-, un-, dis-, etc. in English! It generally appears in Korean as 불 or 부 at the front of a word. With that said Let’s get into some negative Hanja words! I’ll start out by breaking some of the words down, so you get the 2-for-1 combo~
Negative Emotional words
불 + 행복, not + happiness =
불행: unhappiness/misfortune
불안: anxiety
불안전: insecurity
불만: dissatisfaction/discontent
불쾌: unpleasantness
불신: distrust
불친절: unkind
불분명: unclear
불확실: uncertain
Negative Hanja Verbs:
불 + 가능 + 하다, not + possible + to be =
불가능하다: to be impossible
불 + 완전 +하다, not + complete + to be =
불완전하다: to be incomplete/imperfection
불가피하다: inevitable, unavoidable
불필요하다: to be unnecessary/needless
불과하다: nothing but-/nothing more than
불리하다: to be disadvantageous, unfavorable
불편하다: to be uncomfortable
불안하다: to be anxious
불평등하다: to be inequality
불행하다: to be unfortunate
불확실하다: be uncertain
Negative Hanja words for Morals
부 + 도덕, not + moral =
부도덕: immoral
부패: rot/decompose or corruption
불법: illegal
불의: injustice
불평등: inequality
부당: wrongful
불량배: a thug/bully
부정: unfaithfulness
부정직: dishonesty
부정행위: cheating (on a test/exam)
불륜: an affair
Life & Immortality
불멸: immortal
불사: immortality
불사신: invincible person
불사조: a phoenix
불운: misfortune
불가피: inevitable
불명예: dishonor/disgrace
Negative Hanja words for Failing
불량품: a defective product
불발탄: a dud
불합격: failing an exam/test
불허: not allowed/disapproval
Relating to Communication
불일치: disagreement
불통: noncommunication
불평: complaint/gripe
More Words!
불과: only/just
불가결: indispensable
부동산: real estate (lit. immovable property)
불로소득: unearned income
불이익: disadvantage
불편: inconvenient
불공평: unfair
부자연: unnatural
부적당: inappropriate
부정확: inaccurate
불필요: being unnecessary
불결: unclean/dirtiness
불면증: insomnia
불편: inconvenience
불균형: imbalanced
불규칙: irregular
불이익: disadvantage
불변: not changing
2 Comments
Dax · October 1, 2024 at 2:11 pm
I always find Sino-Korean so interesting 🤙 I hope you do more. I’m curious if there’s any documentation about how much spoken Chinese influenced spoken Korean. Like which words are completely Korean and which ones were influenced by Chinese, and why. Keep up the posts!
Pam · October 3, 2024 at 5:28 pm
I think I touched on it a bit in my introduction to Sino-Korean post, but supposedly a bit over 50% of words have Chinese origin!