Hangul Syllable Ddi

Context picks the meaning. In Korean, 띠 can name a band around clothing, a person's birth-year animal sign, or the belt that marks taekwondo rank. 허리띠 means waist belt; after an animal name, 띠 marks that animal's birth-year sign.

The belt itself began as a strip tied around the waist to hold clothing closed; later, metal fittings and set colors marked rank. As of 2026, the oldest surviving Korean belt records or objects date to the Three Kingdoms period; earlier use is inferred.

The birth-year meaning belongs to the 12-animal cycle shared in Korea, China, and Japan; Buddhist influence also gave the animals protective associations in Korea. 띠동갑 describes people with the same birth-year animal; it entered the Standard Korean Dictionary in 2009 after widespread use.

Hangul syllables combine letters in a set pattern.

Hangul, the Korean alphabet, was created under King Sejong in 1443; the 1446 book 훈민정음 explained its design. Syllables are written as compact blocks: 띠 joins the initial consonant ᄄ and vowel ᅵ. Unicode can store 띠 as one block or as those linked letters; normalization keeps the two forms canonically equivalent.