What 복 means
It names fortune, blessing, or luck; the phrase supplies the shade. The dictionary covers life's good fortune, happiness gained through a person or thing, and having plenty of something. In 새해 복 많이 받으세요, it wishes someone abundant good fortune.
복 is a Hangul block tied to the Hanja 福. Hangul was completed in 1443 and explained in 1446 for writing Korean. As of 2026, the sources checked do not establish this block's first surviving use. Korean readings range from five blessings to everyday household wishes.
Use a phrase when you mean good luck
A full phrase makes the wish legible. In traditional Korean usage, 복 appears in New Year wishes, ritual blessings, lucky pouches, food, clothing, and household decoration. A bat motif can also point to 福 because 蝠, “bat,” shares its Hanja sound. That makes the character culturally specific, not a universal standalone blessing.
Why did ㅂㅗㄱ become 복?
Korean input methods compose jamo into a syllable block. Type ㅂ, ㅗ, then ㄱ and the input method fuses them into 복. Unicode normalization can split that block apart or compose it again, so text processing may differ while the reading stays the same.
Ordinary Korean vocabulary in phrases; a lone block is more ambiguous than a complete greeting or compound.
Can I send 복 alone? Not reliably; a full greeting or compound tells the reader what you mean.
Part of the collection
Who writes 복
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What it means when someone sends it to you
4 readingsA New Year wish for abundant good fortune.
Related characters
2
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1복 vs 福
Related but not identical. 복 is Hangul; 福 is the Hanja character behind its fortune or blessing sense. The Hangul syllable alone does not identify every possible word that sounds like bok.
More like this
11
How to type or find 복
- Also called
- bok · pok · bog
- Search it as
- 복 · 福 · fortune · luck · blessing · bokjumeoni
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
복\BCF5Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.