What 옛 means
It means old or former before a noun.
Korean spelling keeps 옛 apart from 예. 예 is a noun for the vague distant past; 옛 never stands alone and builds familiar words such as 옛날, 옛말, and 옛이야기.
Why does 옛 show up in old Korean books?
It casts old people and stories as precedent.
A modernized history gives 옛 성인들, earlier sages. The Songs of Flying Dragons was compiled in 1445 and 1447 and printed in 1447 to praise Joseon founders and instruct later kings. A 1447 Seokbosangjeol transcription preserves older spellings such as 녜 업던.
Those sources establish no separate regional reading as of 2026-09-19.
An ordinary past marker; mixing it with 예 is the costly mistake.
Write 예부터, not 옛부터: 옛 modifies a noun, while 예 takes -부터.
Part of the collection
Who writes 옛
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Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
2
Questions people ask
1Why does 옛 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.
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How to type or find 옛
- Search it as
- 옛 · 옛날 · 예부터 · 옛이야기 · 옛말
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
옛\C61BCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.