• brown color;
  • coarse hemp cloth;

Etymology

It is a phono-semantic compound, consisting of:

衣 (ui, “clothing”) as the semantic element;

曷 (gal, “how, why”) as the phonetic element.

Usage in Korean

Less common in modern daily usage; appears mostly in historical, literary, or cultural contexts.

Associated with coarse cloth and brownish robes, often linked with monks or humble attire.

갈포 (褐布) – coarse cloth, hempen fabric

승려갈 (僧褐) – monk’s coarse robe

갈의 (褐衣) – coarse clothes, plain attire (often symbolizing poverty or humility)

Words that derived from

Additional notes

This character is not included in the HSK vocabulary list (미출제한자). In modern Chinese, other characters such as 棕 (zōng), 茶 (chá), 栗 (lì) are also used to denote the color “brown.”

갈색
galsaek
gal
Kangxi radical:145, + 9
Strokes:14
Unicode:U+8910
Cangjie input:
  • 中日心女 (LAPV)
Composition:
  • ⿰ 衤 曷
  • ⿰ 衤 ⿱ 日 匂

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

Creative commons license
The content on this page provided under the CC BY-NC-SA license.