What 칼 means
칼 is the everyday Korean word for a knife or cutting tool. In a weapon context it can also mean a blade or sword; historical Korean terminology uses 검 for a sword and 도 for a one-edged blade.
Older Korean spellings include 갈 and 갏; historical records trace a transition written 갈ㅎ→칼ㅎ→칼. One account connects regional 갈 in 갈치, the Korean name for hairtail, with Silla-era use; Silla was an ancient Korean kingdom. The fish name has competing explanations.
Historical Korean accounts place blades in practical, military, ritual, and status roles: decoration could mark rank, and some early examples had protective or ritual roles.
칼 compounds shift from cutting to timing
칼국수 keeps the literal cutting idea: its noodles are made by slicing rolled dough with a knife. In 칼퇴, 칼 becomes a metaphor for precision, meaning leaving work right on time. A 2017 workplace report described the term as negatively loaded when leaving on time needed an explanation.
칼 is a plain Korean noun; compounds keep its cutting sense literal or turn it into a metaphor.
A 2017 workplace report records the risk: 칼퇴 drew negative reactions when workers had to explain leaving on time.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsCombination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does 칼 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type 칼
칼\CE7CCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.