Hangul syllable Neulg

It is the word-part in 늙다, “to grow old.”

Hangul is the writing system used for Korean: consonant and vowel letters combine into square syllable blocks. 늙 is one block in the verb 늙다, so it usually is not a complete message by itself.

A 1443 record names Hangul’s creation, and the 1446 book Hunminjeongeum explains its design. The National Institute of Korean Language traces 늙다 to 용가, its abbreviation for the 1447 poem 용비어천가 (“Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven”); that is an early written record of the word, not a separate meaning for 늙 alone.

why does 늙 sound different in each form?

The spelling keeps ㄺ while the ending changes its sound.

How is 늙 pronounced? In Korean, 늙다 is [늑따] (a final k before a tense t), 늙어 is [늘거] (l stays at the end and g begins the next syllable), 늙고 is [늘꼬] (l followed by a tense k), and 늙는 is [능는] (a back nasal sound before n). Keep the written base 늙- in every form.

Unicode also allows the syllable as separate Hangul component letters rather than one precomposed block. Text matching can miss one form unless it converts both to the same standard form first. The Unicode 16.0.0 standard allows fonts to arrange those components differently.