족보 (jokbo)

족보 (jokbo) means a book that records a family’s lineage and blood relations — and, among students today, it is also slang for the past exam papers and study notes handed down from older students. Open a dictionary and you get a thick volume from a Joseon-dynasty yangban household. Open a university group chat two weeks before midterms and you get this: ‘야, 이 과목 족보 도는 거 있어? (ya, i gwamok jokbo doneun geo isseo?)’ — ‘Hey, is there a jokbo going around for this class?’ Same word: one points to a centuries-old bundle of paper, the other to a PDF flying around on KakaoTalk.

Watch enough Korean dramas or variety shows and you’ll meet this word wearing two completely different faces. When the older relatives at a holiday dinner laugh and say ‘족보가 꼬였다 (jokbo-ga kkoyeotda)’, they’re talking about family ranking. When a student in a campus scene says ‘족보 좀 구해 줘 (jokbo jom guhae jwo)’, they’re talking about exams. That’s exactly where learners get lost. Today we’ll sort both faces out at once.

First, the nuance. The original meaning — ‘family genealogy’ — is serious, weighty language. It travels with words like 조상 (josang, ancestors), 혈통 (hyeoltong, bloodline) and 항렬 (hangnyeol, generational rank), and you don’t casually drop it into a joke. The student slang 족보, by contrast, is light and a little furtive. It isn’t a word for official settings; it passes between peers, and it carries a faint anxiety of ‘everyone else has it and I’m the only one who couldn’t get a copy.’ Two set phrases branch off from here. 족보가 꼬이다 (jokbo-ga kkoida) describes a situation where age and family rank don’t line up, so the proper terms of address get tangled. 족보가 없다 (jokbo-ga eopda) means something has no clear origin or provenance. Be careful with that second one — aimed at a person, it’s a very harsh thing to say.

Checking it in the National Institute of Korean Language dictionary

The National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary lists 족보 as a noun and splits it into two senses. The slang sense hasn’t made it into the dictionary yet; what’s recorded there is the original meaning.

족보 (jokbo) 「noun」

한 가문의 계통과 혈통 관계를 기록한 책. (A book that records a family’s lineage and blood relations.) [en] genealogy — A book where a family’s lineage and blood lines are recorded. [ja] ぞくふ【族譜】。けいず【系図】。かふ【家譜】 — 一族の系統と血統関係を書き記した本。 [es] árbol genealógico, genograma — Libro que registra la relación sanguínea y el linaje de una familia. [zh] 族谱，家谱，系谱 — 记载一个家族的世系及血统关系的书。 — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

족보 (jokbo) 「noun」 2. 한 가문의 계통과 혈통 관계. (The lineage and blood relations of a family.) [en] lineage — The lineage and blood lines of a family. [ja] ぞくふ【族譜】。けいふ【系譜】。かふ【家譜】。ちすじ【血筋】 — 一族の系統と血統関係。 [es] relación familiar — Relación sanguínea y linaje de una familia. [zh] 族谱，家谱，系谱 — 一个家族的世系及血统关系。 — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

Sense 1 is the book; sense 2 is the relationship itself. Treat it as a physical object, as in ‘족보를 펼치다 (jokbo-reul pyeolchida)’ — ‘to open the genealogy book’ — and you’re in sense 1. Talk about a relationship, as in ‘두 집안은 족보가 같다 (du jibaneun jokbo-ga gatda)’ — ‘the two households share the same lineage’ — and you’re in sense 2.

The dictionary carries no Portuguese translation, so we should note that the following is our own rendering. — [pt] genealogia / linhagem — Livro que registra a linhagem e os laços de sangue de uma família.

Let’s also look at the real usage examples the dictionary provides. Every quotation below is exactly as it appears in the original entry.

족보 등재. (jokbo deungjae) — ‘Entry in the family genealogy.’ — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

족보 등재 (jokbo deungjae) — that is, putting a name into the genealogy book. In the past, a name was added when a new child was born into the family or a marriage took place. Being a short noun-plus-noun phrase, it shows up readily in newspaper articles and formal notices.

박 씨네 족보를 보니까 양반 집안인 것 같던데. (Bak ssine jokbo-reul bonikka yangban jibin-in geot gatdeonde) — ‘I had a look at the Park family’s genealogy, and it seems they’re from a yangban household.’ — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

박 씨네 족보를 보니까 양반 집안인 것 같던데 (Bak ssine jokbo-reul bonikka yangban jibin-in geot gatdeonde). This is the tone of neighbors gossiping about someone else’s family. The ending ‘-던데 (-deonde)’ creates the feel of secondhand reporting: ‘from what I saw, that’s how it looked.’ In this sentence, 족보 is a book that was literally opened and read.

조선 후기에는 철저히 부계 중심으로 족보를 기록했다. (Joseon hugi-eneun cheoljeohi bugye jungsim-euro jokbo-reul girokaetda) — ‘In the late Joseon period, genealogies were recorded strictly along the paternal line.’ — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

조선 후기에는 철저히 부계 중심으로 족보를 기록했다 (Joseon hugi-eneun cheoljeohi bugye jungsim-euro jokbo-reul girokaetda). This is the kind of expository sentence you’d hear in a history class or a documentary. In the early Joseon period, daughters and sons-in-law were listed too, but as the dynasty went on, the record narrowed toward sons — a fact Korean history courses come back to often.

족보를 보니 우리 집안과 옆집 아저씨네 집안은 같은 조상에서 갈라져 나온 분파였다. (jokbo-reul boni uri jibingwa yeopjip ajeossine jibaneun gateun josang-eseo gallajyeo naon bunpa-yeotda) — ‘Looking at the genealogy, my family and the family of the man next door turned out to be branches that split off from the same ancestor.’ — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

같은 조상에서 갈라져 나온 분파 (gateun josang-eseo gallajyeo naon bunpa) — ‘branches that split off from the same ancestor.’ This one is closer to sense 2. Discovering that the neighbor down the hall is actually a distant relative is something that really does happen in Korea now and then.

족보에 오른 장인들은 나라에 세금을 바쳐야 했다. (jokbo-e oreun jangindeureun nara-e segeum-eul bachyeoya haetda) — ‘Artisans entered in the register had to pay taxes to the state.’ — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)

Here 족보에 오르다 (jokbo-e oreuda) stretches into an administrative sense: ‘to be entered in a register.’ The context is that once your name goes onto the ledger, obligations follow it.

Seeing it in a real conversation

Situation: an empty lecture hall after an evening graduate seminar. Midterms are two weeks away. Emily joined this department only this semester.

Jun-kyung: 에밀리, 이 과목 시험 처음이지? 혹시 족보 구했어? Emily, this is your first exam in this class, right? Did you get hold of a jokbo?

Emily: 족보? 나 우리 시댁 족보밖에 몰라. 그게 시험이랑 무슨 상관이야? Jokbo? The only jokbo I know is my in-laws’ family register. What does that have to do with an exam?

Jun-kyung: 아 그거 말고. 선배들이 물려주는 기출문제 모음 있잖아. 이 교수님 문제 절반은 작년이랑 똑같아. Ah, not that one. The collection of past exam questions the seniors pass down. Half of this professor’s questions are the same as last year’s.

Emily: 헐, 그런 게 돌아다녀? 나만 몰랐네, 진짜. Whoa, that’s going around? I was seriously the only one who didn’t know.

Jun-kyung: 내가 이따 파일 보내 줄게. 근데 족보만 믿다가 문제 싹 바뀌면 큰일 나. I’ll send you the file later. But if you trust only the jokbo and the questions all change, you’re done for.

Emily: 알지. 보험이지 뭐. 고마워, 오빠! I know. It’s just insurance. Thanks, oppa!

This is where it sounds off

✗ (To a professor) 교수님, 이번 시험 족보 좀 주실 수 있을까요? (gyosunim, ibeon siheom jokbo jom jusil su isseulkkayo?) — ‘Professor, could you give me the jokbo for this exam?’ ✓ (To an older student) 선배, 혹시 이 과목 족보 있으면 좀 주세요. (seonbae, hoksi i gwamok jokbo isseumyeon jom juseyo.) — ‘Sunbae, if you happen to have a jokbo for this class, please share it.’ → The slang 족보 refers to material students quietly circulate among themselves. Asking the professor — the person who writes the exam — for one is effectively asking to be told the questions in advance. To a professor, the right phrasing is ‘지난 학기 기출문제를 참고해도 될까요? (jinan hakgi gichul munje-reul chamgohaedo doelkkayo?)’ — ‘May I refer to last semester’s past exam questions?’

✗ (Talking about a friend’s family) 너희 집은 족보도 없나 보다. (neohui jibeun jokbo-do eomna boda.) — ‘I guess your family doesn’t even have a genealogy.’ ✓ (Talking about a course) 이 수업은 족보가 없어서 다들 맨땅에 헤딩이야. (i sueobeun jokbo-ga eopseoseo dadeul maenttang-e heding-iya.) — ‘There’s no jokbo for this class, so everyone’s going in blind.’ → Attached to a person or a household, ‘족보가 없다’ turns into ‘근본이 없다 (geunboni eopda)’ — ‘you have no roots’ — a serious insult. Only when it’s attached to materials or objects does it read lightly, as ‘there’s nothing to refer to.‘

Example sentences by situation

1. Three days before the exam, in the department group chat

This is the first scene a learner runs into after finally getting into a Korean university following years of studying abroad. Everyone is quietly swapping files, and you’re the only one with nothing.

야, 이 과목 족보 도는 거 있어? 나 하나도 못 구했어. (ya, i gwamok jokbo doneun geo isseo? na hanado mot guhaesseo.) Hey, is there a jokbo going around for this class? I couldn’t get a single one.

The key word is ‘돌다 (dolda)’, ‘to go around.’ It means passing from hand to hand, and in one short verb it captures the under-the-table nature of this material.

2. Chuseok evening, in the living room of the head household

A kid ten years younger than you outranks you generationally, so you have to call him ‘아저씨 (ajeossi)’. This happens every single year at Korean holidays.

쟤가 나보다 어린데 나더러 조카래. 족보가 완전히 꼬였네. (jyaega naboda eorinde nadeoreo jokarae. jokbo-ga wanjeonhi kkoyeonne.) He’s younger than me but says I’m his nephew. The family lines are totally tangled.

족보가 꼬이다 isn’t said in anger — it’s said with a laugh. You use it to turn an awkward form of address into a joke.

3. First day at a new job, at your mentor’s desk

These days the slang has walked off campus too. People jokingly call handover documents this.

우리 팀은 업무 족보가 잘 정리돼 있어서 신입도 금방 따라와요. (uri timeun eommu jokbo-ga jal jeongnidwae isseoseo sinipdo geumbang ttarawayo.) Our team’s work jokbo is well organized, so new hires catch up fast.

This is casual talk within your own team. In an external report or an official document, you’d write ‘업무 매뉴얼 (eommu maenyueol)’, ‘work manual’, instead.

족보 is a noun, so the word itself carries no politeness level. The honorific weight comes from the predicate that follows it. To a friend it’s ‘족보 있어? (jokbo isseo?)’; to an older student it’s ‘혹시 족보 있으세요? (hoksi jokbo isseuseyo?)’. But no matter how high you crank the grammar, the fact that the word is slang doesn’t change. In front of a professor, a workplace superior, or in an official document, the safe move is to switch to a different word entirely.

Expression	Tone / intensity	Where it’s used
족보 (jokbo)	Slang. Friendly and under-the-table	Between students, in group chats. Not with professors or in official documents
기출문제 (gichul munje)	Neutral, official	Anywhere. Professors, cram schools, official notices
정리본 (jeongribon)	Neutral, practical	Summarized lecture notes. Says nothing about where they came from
매뉴얼 (maenyueol)	Stiff and formal	Company documents, external reports

As the table shows, 족보 and 기출문제 often point to the very same thing, but they belong in different rooms. Calling one and the same PDF ‘족보’ with a friend and ‘기출문제’ with a professor — that’s the instinct Korean students have.

Cultural background — everything comes down to being handed down

Why, of all things, did exam material end up named after ‘the family book’? Because the two things share one property: 대물림 (daemullim), passing down from above to below. If the original 족보 runs from ancestors to descendants, the campus 족보 runs from older students to younger ones. One class year hands it to the next, and that year hands it on again. The slang didn’t just borrow the name — it borrowed the mechanism.

It’s worth knowing the original genealogy culture too. Joseon-era yangban households compiled generations’ worth of names into a single volume and kept it, and as the dictionary examples show, the record narrowed toward the paternal line as the dynasty went on. Out of this came 항렬 (hangnyeol), the practice of putting a shared character into the names of everyone in the same generation to mark rank. Precisely because of it, age and generational rank can end up out of step. That’s exactly the situation in the example above, where a child ten years younger becomes your ‘uncle.’ It’s also why this topic sets off laughter at every holiday gathering.

Korean dramas show both faces plainly. In family dramas, the elders spread open a thick book and argue over who is which generation’s descendant; in campus or exam-prep dramas, students dash around the night before a test trying to get hold of the files. Online, people take it one step further and call someone who scrambles everyone’s age-and-rank relationships a ‘족보 브레이커 (jokbo beureikeo)’, a ‘genealogy breaker.’ It’s a coinage, so it isn’t in the dictionary, but you’ll see it often in online communities.

To sum up: a heavy meaning and a light meaning live inside one word. Which one it is, the surrounding words will always tell you. If 조상 (ancestors), 집안 (household), or 항렬 (generational rank) are nearby, it’s the book. If 시험 (exam), 교수님 (professor), or 기출 (past questions) are nearby, it’s the file.

Today’s quiz

Which of the following uses 족보 in a way that sounds off?

시험 일주일 남았는데 아직 족보를 못 구했어. (siheom iljuil namanneunde ajik jokbo-reul mot guhaesseo.) — ‘The exam is a week away and I still haven’t got hold of a jokbo.’
교수님, 이번 시험 족보 좀 미리 보내 주시면 감사하겠습니다. (gyosunim, ibeon siheom jokbo jom miri bonae jusimyeon gamsahagetseumnida.) — ‘Professor, I’d be grateful if you could send me the jokbo for this exam in advance.’
족보를 보니 우리 집안은 원래 경상도에서 올라왔더라. (jokbo-reul boni uri jibaneun wollae Gyeongsangdo-eseo ollawatdeora.) — ‘Looking at the genealogy, our family originally came up from Gyeongsang-do.’

See the answer

The answer is number 2. 족보 is slang that students trade among themselves, so asking the professor — the person who sets the questions — for one sounds like a request to be told the exam questions in advance. No amount of polite grammar makes that awkwardness go away. Here you’d need to switch to ‘지난 학기 기출문제를 참고해도 괜찮을까요? (jinan hakgi gichul munje-reul chamgohaedo gwaenchanheulkkayo?)’ — ‘Would it be all right if I referred to last semester’s past exam questions?’ Number 1 is natural as the student-to-student slang usage, and number 3 is exactly the original meaning recorded in the dictionary.

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.