Hangul syllable Nam

Alone, 남 means “someone else”; compounds can mean “south” or “man.” In 남의 일, 의 marks possession.

Hanja are Chinese characters used in Korean. 南 supplies the “south” reading; 男 supplies “man.” 남쪽 means “south,” and 남자 means “man.”

Hangul was created in 1443 and published in 1446 to make Korean writing easier. The noun is attested in 1447 in Yongbi eocheonga, an early Korean literary work; this dates the word, not necessarily this spelling. Unicode can store 남 as one block or equivalent jamo (Hangul building blocks); normalization changes the representation, not its reading.