뒤통수 치다 (dwitongsu chida) — When the Person You Trusted Hits You from Behind
On the day someone they trusted betrays them, there’s one phrase Korean speakers reach for first.
뒤통수 치다 (dwitongsu chida) means to betray or deceive someone who trusted you and leave them hurt by it. Smiling and shaking hands in front, then striking the back of their head where they can’t see — that’s how blunt the picture this phrase paints is. The business partner whose mind changed with the contract sitting right there on the table. The friend who said “let’s get ready for this together” and then quietly moved first, alone. The drama character who throws off the nice-guy mask in the final episode. If you’re learning Korean, you will run into this phrase — in drama subtitles, in variety-show captions, in your coworkers’ lunchtime conversations.
The temperature of this expression is very hot. You don’t use it for a simple mistake or a misunderstanding. There are two conditions. First, you had to have trusted them. If there was no trust to begin with, there’s no back of the head to strike — this only happens to someone who turned their back to you. Second, it had to be unexpected. Someone picking a fight with you head-on is not 뒤통수. It has to be an ambush in an off-guard moment. That’s why this phrase carries more than anger: layered on top is the ache of “but I trusted you.”
Learn the two forms together. When the betrayer is the subject, it’s 뒤통수를 치다 (dwitongsu-reul chida); when the one betrayed is the subject, it’s 뒤통수를 맞다 (dwitongsu-reul matda). In real conversation, the victim’s version — 나 뒤통수 맞았어 (na dwitongsu majasseo) — is what you’ll hear far more often. The particle 를 is frequently dropped, so people just say 뒤통수 쳤어 and 뒤통수 맞았어.
A Real Conversation
Scene: Saturday afternoon, Exit 3 of the subway station — the agreed meeting spot for a secondhand sale. They’ve been waiting for the seller for twenty minutes now.
Jun-kyung: 야, 벌써 20분이야. 연락 왔어? Hey, it’s already been 20 minutes. Did they message you?
Emily: 방금 왔어. “죄송해요, 다른 분이 5만 원 더 주신다고 해서요.” Just now. “Sorry, someone else offered 50,000 won more.”
Jun-kyung: 뭐? 야, 그건 완전 뒤통수 치는 거지. What? Hey, that’s a total backstab.
Emily: 그러니까. 어제까지 꼭 드리겠다고 해놓고 이렇게 뒤통수를 쳐? Right? He said he’d definitely sell it to me, right up until yesterday — and now he stabs me in the back like this?
Jun-kyung: 됐어. 저런 사람한테 샀으면 나중에 또 뒤통수 맞아. Forget it. If you’d bought from someone like that, you’d just get burned again later.
Emily: 두 시간 걸려서 왔는데… 야, 떡볶이라도 사줘. I came all this way, two hours… hey, at least buy me some tteokbokki.
Used This Way, It Sounds Off
✗ (to a friend who caught the flu and pushed back your plans) 야, 너 나 뒤통수 쳤어. Hey, you totally backstabbed me. ✓ (to a friend who caught the flu and pushed back your plans) 야, 아쉽다. 몸조리 잘하고 다음에 보자. Aw, too bad. Take care of yourself and let’s meet next time. → 뒤통수 치다 is a strong phrase reserved for “a betrayal of trust.” Used for circumstances nobody could help, it won’t even land as a joke — it just paints the other person as a bad guy.
✗ (to your department head in a meeting) 부장님, 저희 뒤통수 치신 거잖아요. Sir, you went behind our backs. ✓ (to your department head in a meeting) 부장님, 저희가 사전에 듣지 못한 내용이라 많이 당황스럽습니다. Sir, this wasn’t shared with us beforehand, so we’re quite thrown by it. → Attaching honorific endings does not soften this expression. It labels the other person a traitor, full stop. With someone senior to you, or in any public or professional setting, the safe move is to strip out the emotion and state only the facts.
Example Sentences by Situation
1) At work — when a colleague submits a proposal you built together under their name alone
같이 밤새서 만든 기획안인데 혼자 이름 올릴 줄은 몰랐어. 제대로 뒤통수 맞았지. (gachi bamsaeseo mandeun gihoegan-inde honja ireum ollil jul-eun mollasseo. jedaero dwitongsu majatji.) We pulled all-nighters on that proposal together — I never imagined he’d put only his own name on it. I got well and truly stabbed in the back.
This is where the phrase gets used most. Both conditions are right there: there was trust (you stayed up all night together) and it was unexpected (you never saw it coming). It’s something coworkers say to each other in a low voice on the way home or over lunch — not something you say to the person’s face.
2) Dramas — after watching the twist in the final episode
마지막 회에서 작가가 시청자 뒤통수를 제대로 쳤어. (majimak hoe-eseo jakga-ga sicheongja dwitongsu-reul jedaero chyeosseo.) In the final episode, the writer completely blindsided the viewers.
Here it doesn’t mean an actual betrayal — it means “our expectations got flipped upside down.” It isn’t angry; if anything, it’s closer to admiration. The day after a broadcast, online communities and comment sections fill up with this exact sentence. If you want to talk about Korean dramas, this extended usage is a must-know.
3) Between friends — as a light joke
우리 같이 다이어트 하기로 했잖아. 혼자 치킨 시켰어? 이건 뒤통수야. (uri gachi daieoteu hagiro haetjanha. honja chikin sikyeosseo? igeon dwitongsu-ya.) We agreed to diet together, remember? You ordered chicken by yourself? This is a betrayal.
Said with a smile, it’s a joke. But only between very close friends, and only over something very trivial. The moment the matter turns even slightly serious, it stops sounding like a joke.
Formal and Casual Speech, and Similar Expressions
In casual speech, 걔가 나 뒤통수 쳤어 (gyaega na dwitongsu chyeosseo) sounds natural; in polite speech, 제가 뒤통수를 맞았어요 (jega dwitongsu-reul majasseoyo) is the better fit. In polite situations, rather than making the wrongdoer the subject — “그분이 저를 뒤통수 쳤어요” — it’s gentler to frame it as something that happened to you. The instant you point directly at the other person, the phrase turns far too harsh.
| Expression | Temperature / Intensity | Where it belongs |
|---|---|---|
| 뒤통수 치다 (dwitongsu chida) | Very strong. Anger + a sense of being wronged | Peers, private conversation. Unsuitable for formal settings |
| 배신하다 (baesinhada) | Strong. Neutral, written-language feel | News, writing, any formal setting |
| 등에 칼을 꽂다 (deung-e kar-eul kkotda) | Strongest. Grim and grave | Major betrayals. Carries the weight of a drama line |
| 통수 치다 (tongsu chida) | Strong, but light in tone | Gaming and internet slang among peers. Never in front of elders |
| 바람맞히다 (baram-machida) | Mild | Breaking a plan, standing someone up. Not betrayal |
Cultural Background — The Hand That Comes from Behind
뒤통수 is the native Korean word for the back of the head. A fist flying at you from the front can be seen and blocked; the back of your head is where your eyes don’t reach. And people don’t turn their backs on just anyone. That’s exactly how this expression frames betrayal — the fact that you showed someone your back is itself proof that you trusted them, and so only someone you trusted can hit you there. Among younger speakers and in gaming and internet spaces, the clipped slang form 통수 (tongsu) is also widely used. Shorter also means lighter in tone, so it tends to land on things like a teammate suddenly switching sides rather than a genuine betrayal.
Watch Korean dramas and the place of this phrase comes into sharper focus. Betrayal is one of the great load-bearing pillars of Korean drama: families circling an inheritance, office politics, revenge plots. In the scene where the person the protagonist trusted most turns on them, the character usually collapses before they get angry. The loss — “but I trusted you” — arrives ahead of the rage. That feeling has a name, and the name is 뒤통수. Variety shows work the same way: the moment a cast member secretly switches sides, the word flashes across the screen in giant captions. And the day after a broadcast, viewers laugh as they post that they “got backstabbed by the writer.” When a person does it to you, it’s a word of anger; when a story does it to you, it’s a word of admiration.
Today’s Quiz
Which of the following situations would be an odd fit for 뒤통수 치다?
- A business partner secretly siphoned off company money and cut off contact.
- A friend who agreed to apply together applied first, alone, and took the spot.
- A friend caught the flu and pushed yesterday’s plans to next week.
- In a drama’s final episode, the character who seemed kindest turned out to be the culprit.
Answer: number 3. The flu isn’t a betrayal; it’s a circumstance. 뒤통수 치다 carries the judgment that someone broke faith with you, so using it for something unavoidable unfairly casts the other person as the villain. Numbers 1 and 2 are textbook breaches of trust, and number 4 is the extended usage applied to a twist that overturned your expectations.
The definitions, example sentences, and dialogue in this post are all original work written by the author. This entry contains no dictionary citation, as the National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr) returned no results for this headword.