麴

Phono-semantic compound, composed of:

麥 (보리 맥) — semantic component, indicating cereal or grain (barley / wheat).

匊 (움큼 국) — phonetic component, giving the sound qu/guk, and by extension the meaning of “gather up; collect”.

Literally something like “collected grain (for fermentation)”, symbolizing the fermentation starter made from cereal grains.

While modern everyday Korean rarely uses the single character 麴 in common compounds, the concept and word 누룩 (meju / nuruk) is directly connected:

누룩 (메주 또는 누룩) — fermentation starter cake

주모(酒母) (주모) — used in historical Korean brewing texts: “누룩(麴子)로 주모를 만들고…”

Historically in Korea, the fermentation starter 누룩 played a central role in traditional alcoholic beverages such as 탁주 (takju), 청주 (cheongju), and 소주 (soju).

The link between cereal/grain (麥) and the fermentation starter (麴) reflects the agricultural origins of fermentation in Korean culture.