복붙 (bokpput)

If you ask a Korean friend for their bank account number over KakaoTalk, nine times out of ten this is what comes back: “잠깐만, 복붙해서 보낼게.” (jamkkanman, bokpputhaeseo bonaelge) — “Hold on, I’ll copy-paste it and send it.”

복붙 (bokpput) is a shortened form of 복사해서 붙여넣기 (boksahaeseo butyeoneokgi), “copy and paste.” It means moving something over exactly as it is, without laying a finger on it. That motion you perform dozens of times a day on your computer and your phone — Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste — squeezed down into two syllables. It’s not a standard, dictionary-approved word, but if you work at a Korean company, go to school in Korea, or just sit in a group chat, you’ll hear it at least once a day.

Its uses split into two main branches. The first is literal: the thing you do on a screen. You use it when you’re moving a link, an address, an account number, or an announcement somebody else sent, over as-is. Here 복붙 is completely neutral — no feelings attached. If anything, when someone says “직접 치지 말고 복붙해” (jikjeop chiji malgo bokpputhae, “Don’t type it out by hand, just copy-paste it”), there’s care in it: they don’t want you to make a mistake. Koreans have already lived through the disaster of hand-typing a Korean address or a sixteen-digit account number and getting one character wrong — more than once.

The second branch is figurative. When someone takes something another person made — or something they themselves made a while back — and reuses it without changing a thing, the result gets called 복붙. Say “이 보고서 작년 거 복붙했네” (i bogoseo jangnyeon geo bokpputhaenne, “You just copy-pasted last year’s report for this”) and it’s not a compliment; it’s a call-out. This is where the temperature of the word flips. Pointing at the action, it’s a word about convenience. Pointing at the result, it becomes a word that accuses you of not putting in any effort. Push it one step further and it turns into a roundabout way of saying “plagiarism.”

Branching off from that, there’s a third use. When two people or two things look uncannily alike, Koreans say “완전 복붙이다” (wanjeon bokpputida, “total copy-paste”). A parent and child’s faces; café interiors all decorated the same way to follow a trend. This one isn’t criticism — it’s closer to admiration.

As a verb, you add 하다 to get 복붙하다 (bokpputada). The base is pronounced [복뿓]; because of the ㅌ batchim in 붙, when a vowel follows it links up and comes out like [복뿌타다].

A Real Conversation

Scene: The waiting room at the Immigration Office. There are still twenty numbers to go before theirs, and Emily is filling out an application to extend her stay on her phone. Jun-kyung, in the seat beside her, leans over to look at the screen.

Jun-kyung: 주소는 손으로 치지 마. 등본에 있는 거 복붙해. Don’t type the address by hand. Just copy-paste it from your residence certificate.

Emily: 했는데 띄어쓰기가 이상하게 붙어왔어. 앞에 공백이 두 칸이야. I did, but the spacing came out weird. There are two blank spaces in front.

Jun-kyung: 아, 그거 원래 그래. 메모장에 한 번 붙였다가 다시 가져와. Ah, that always happens. Paste it into a memo app first, then bring it back over.

Emily: 아 진짜 귀찮아. 사유서는 그냥 작년 거 복붙하면 안 돼? Ugh, so annoying. Can’t I just copy-paste last year’s statement of reasons?

Jun-kyung: 하지 마. 날짜까지 작년 거 그대로면 바로 티 나. Don’t. If even the date is still last year’s, they’ll spot it right away.

Emily: 알았어, 알았어. 앞부분만 살리고 다시 쓸게. Okay, okay. I’ll keep the opening and rewrite the rest.

복붙 shows up twice in the same conversation, at two different temperatures. Jun-kyung’s 복붙해 means “take the easy route and don’t make a mistake.” Emily’s 복붙하면 안 돼? means “can’t I just cut corners here?” Which is exactly why Jun-kyung shuts it down with 하지 마 — “Don’t.”

Where It Sounds Off

✗ (reporting to your team leader) 지난 분기 자료는 그냥 복붙했습니다. (jinan bungi jaryoneun geunyang bokpputhaetseumnida — “I just copy-pasted last quarter’s materials.”) ✓ (reporting to your team leader) 지난 분기 자료를 그대로 옮겨 왔습니다. (jinan bungi jaryoreul geudaero omgyeo watseumnida — “I carried last quarter’s materials over as they were.”) → Tacking -습니다 onto it doesn’t wash out the “didn’t touch it, phoned it in” flavor baked into 복붙. Using it to describe your own work sounds like a confession that you handled it carelessly. In formal settings, 그대로 옮기다 (geudaero omgida) “carry it over as-is” or 동일하게 적용하다 (dongilhage jeogyonghada) “apply it identically” is the safe choice.

✗ (commenting on a stranger’s post) 이 글 어디서 본 것 같은데, 복붙이죠? (i geul eodiseo bon geot gateunde, bokpputijyo? — “I feel like I’ve seen this post somewhere — it’s a copy-paste, right?”) ✓ 혹시 다른 글과 겹치는 부분이 있는 것 같은데, 한번 확인해 주실 수 있을까요? (hoksi dareun geulgwa gyeopchineun bubuni inneun geot gateunde, hanbeon hwaginhae jusil su isseulkkayo? — “There seem to be some parts that overlap with another post — could you take a look?”) → Unless it’s a joke between close friends, 복붙 amounts to an accusation of plagiarism. Even tossed off lightly, it lands on the other person as a public attack.

Example Sentences by Situation

1. Passing an announcement into a group chat — You’re asking someone to forward a notice from the company bulletin board into the team group chat, word for word. There’s zero negative nuance here.

공지 복붙해서 단톡방에 올려 줘. (gongji bokpputhaeseo dantokbange ollyeo jwo) Copy-paste the notice and post it in the group chat.

2. Looking over someone’s cover letter — You’re reading a job-hunting friend’s cover letter and you notice they only swapped the company name and left the rest of an old one untouched. It pairs often with 티 나다 (ti nada), “it shows.”

이 자소서, 다른 회사 거 복붙한 티 난다. (i jasoseo, dareun hoesa geo bokpputhan ti nanda) You can tell this cover letter was copy-pasted from another company’s version.

3. Seeing a family resemblance — You’re over at a friend’s place and meeting their father for the first time. This 복붙 is admiration, closer to a compliment.

너 아버님이랑 얼굴 완전 복붙이네. (neo abeonimirang eolgul wanjeon bokpputine) You and your dad look like total copy-paste jobs.

Politeness Levels and Similar Expressions

복붙 is a noun, so there’s no honorific level built into the word itself. What you attach to it sets the temperature. Casual is 복붙해 (bokpputhae), polite-everyday is 복붙했어요 (bokpputhaesseoyo), and formal is 복붙했습니다 (bokpputhaetseumnida) — but as we saw above, adding the formal ending does not make this word suitable for a formal setting. Only the form gets elevated while the word stays the same, so it actually sounds more awkward. In front of someone senior to you, or in a document, you’re better off changing the word itself.

Expression	Temperature & Strength	Where It’s Used
복붙 (bokpput)	Light and fast, spoken	With peers, in messengers, in team small talk. Never in reports or official documents
복사해서 붙여넣기 (boksahaeseo butyeoneokgi)	Neutral, explanatory	Manuals, announcements, explaining something to someone senior
베끼다 (bekkida)	Negative, a direct accusation	When someone took another person’s work on the sly. Heavy even as a joke
판박이 (panbagi)	Friendly admiration	When looks or personalities match exactly. Used for objects too
붕어빵 (bung-eoppang)	Warm and affectionate	Almost an idiom for a parent and child who look alike

Even when they all mean “they look alike,” 복붙 is a digital-flavored coinage — young, dry — while 붕어빵, named for fish-shaped pastries baked in the same mold, is far warmer. With older folks, 붕어빵 is the one that lands.

Cultural Background — The Habit of Squeezing Things into Two Syllables

복붙 keeps only the first syllable of each half of 복사해서 붙여넣기. This is an extremely common way to coin new words in Korean: 열심히 공부하다 → 열공 (yeolgong) “studying hard,” 강력하게 추천하다 → 강추 (gangchu) “strong recommendation,” 문화상품권 → 문상 (munsang) “culture gift card” — all built the same way. This habit of compressing long phrases into two syllables spread especially fast in an environment where conversation happens by typing.

Behind the word’s rise sits Korea’s messenger culture. Account numbers get traded over KakaoTalk, announcements circulate through group chats, and a meeting spot gets settled with a single link. In a life where you’re tapping to copy something and pasting it somewhere else several times a day, the seven-syllable 복사해서 붙여넣기 was simply too long.

Then the word walked off the screen. Once online communities started calling posts lifted from other people without credit 복붙 글 (bokpput geul), “copy-paste posts,” the shadows of “no effort” and “plagiarism” attached themselves to 복붙. That’s why the same word now points at both convenience and laziness.

In Korean dramas, this word usually flies past in an office or a university lecture-hall scene — something like a rookie who stayed up all night on a report freezing when a senior colleague asks, “이거 그냥 작년 거 복붙한 거 아니지?” (igeo geunyang jangnyeon geo bokpputhan geo aniji? — “You didn’t just copy-paste last year’s, did you?”). It’s not a flashy line that carries a scene, but it does show, in two syllables, just how fast daily life in Korea rolls along.

Today’s Quiz

In which of the following situations would 복붙 be the most out of place?

Sending a friend a YouTube link: “이거 복붙해서 검색해 봐.” (igeo bokpputhaeseo geomsaekhae bwa — “Copy-paste this and search for it.”)
Passing an announcement into the team group chat: “게시판 글 복붙했어요.” (gesipan geul bokpputhaesseoyo — “I copy-pasted the post from the bulletin board.”)
Telling an interviewer at a job interview: “지원서는 지난번 것을 복붙했습니다.” (jiwonseoneun jinanbeon geoseul bokpputhaetseumnida — “I copy-pasted my application from last time.”)
Meeting a friend’s father for the first time: “두 분 얼굴 완전 복붙이시네요.” (du bun eolgul wanjeon bokpputisineyo — “You two look like a total copy-paste.”)

Answer: 3. Numbers 1 and 2 are the neutral, action-pointing use, and number 4 is closer to admiration, so it isn’t rude. But number 3 has you describing your own work as 복붙 in front of the very people evaluating you. Because of the “didn’t touch it, straight over” nuance soaked into the word, you’re essentially announcing that you didn’t try. In a setting like that, something like “기존 지원서를 바탕으로 다시 작성했습니다” (gijon jiwonseoreul batangeuro dasi jakseonghaetseumnida — “I rewrote it based on my previous application”) is the right call.

Definitions and example sentences are from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr); that portion of this post, including our translations, is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 KR.