Hangul syllable peng

A lone 펭 usually has no fixed everyday meaning in standard Korean; its word or community supplies the sense. It begins 펭귄, the Korean word for “penguin.”

Text symbol

What 펭 means

By itself, 펭 usually has no fixed everyday meaning in standard Korean. It is a Hangul syllable made from the Korean letters ㅍ ㅔ ㅇ; a Korean input method joins them into one block. It is pronounced roughly “peng,” ending with the “ng” sound in “sing.”

Hangul was devised in 1443; the explanatory text Hunminjeongeum appeared in 1446 and set out the writing system and its aim of making Korean writing more accessible than Chinese-character writing.

Inside 펭귄, 펭 is the first syllable of the Korean word for “penguin.” The EBS character Pengsoo used 펭하 around 2019 as playful wordplay on 펭수 하이 (“Pengsoo hi”); Jeju dialect material from 2009 records 펭 as a regional word for “bottle.”

Part of the collection

가

Korean Syllables (Hangul Characters)

Who writes 펭

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What it means when someone sends it to you

4 readings

First syllable of the Korean word for “penguin.”

Combination ideas

Korean word for “penguin”; 펭 is its first syllable.

Pengsoo’s playful “Pengsoo hi” greeting, documented around 2019.

Questions people ask

Why does 펭 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.