워맨스 (womaenseu)

워맨스 (womaenseu) is a word for a deep, burning friendship between two women, described in the language of romance. They aren’t a couple, but they’re as absorbed in each other as any couple — they’ll flip the whole table over for each other, and they’ll stay on each other’s side until the very last moment. This word points at that temperature.

If you watch Korean dramas, you know the moment. The male and female leads finally take each other’s hands after all that back-and-forth — but the viewer’s heart is pounding over a completely different scene. Two women who couldn’t stand each other, sharing one cigarette on the rooftop. One of them falling apart at work, and the other just quietly sitting down beside her, saying nothing. The word viewers flood the live chat with in that moment is exactly 워맨스 (womaenseu).

Let’s unpack the nuance a little more. Three things live inside this word at once. First, intensity. Not just “they’re close” — thick enough to carry the story. Second, not-romance. It borrows the grammar of romance (the flutter, the jealousy, the devotion), but the relationship itself is not a romance. Third, the observer’s gaze. 워맨스 (womaenseu) is less a name people give their own relationship and more a name an admiring onlooker attaches to someone else’s. That’s why the word shows up overwhelmingly in drama reviews, fan communities, and variety-show subtitles.

Grammatically it’s a noun, so you attach particles freely and it goes on. It also pairs nicely with other pieces of slang: 워맨스가 좋다 (womaenseuga jota) — “the womance is good,” 워맨스를 기대하다 (womaenseureul gidaehada) — “to look forward to the womance,” 워맨스 케미 (womaenseu kemi) — “womance chemistry.”

See It in a Real Conversation

The scene: Friday night at Jun-kyung’s place. They’re watching the finale of a 12-episode drama live. The ramyeon they cooked is going cold.

에밀리: 야, 지금이야! 방금 둘이 손잡았어! Hey, right now! They just held hands!

준경: 아니 무슨 남자주인공보다 저 둘이 더 설레냐. Seriously, those two give me more butterflies than the male lead.

에밀리: 그러니까. 나 이 드라마 워맨스 때문에 보는 거야. 남주 나오면 그냥 넘겨. Right? I’m only watching this for the womance. I skip whenever the male lead shows up.

준경: 인정. 근데 너 그 단어 어디서 배웠어? Fair. But where’d you pick up that word?

에밀리: 커뮤니티에서 맨날 봐. 근데 이거 한국에서만 쓰지? 캐나다 친구들한테 워맨스 설명하려니까 딱 맞는 말이 없더라. I see it in online communities all the time. But it’s a Korean thing, right? When I tried to explain womance to my Canadian friends, there was no exact word.

준경: 브로맨스는 영어에서 온 건데, 그거 보고 우먼 붙여서 만든 말이니까. 야, 국물 다 졸았어. Bromance came from English, and this one was made by swapping in “woman.” Hey — the broth’s all boiled away.

When It Sounds Off

✗ (to two women who are actually a couple) 두 분 워맨스 진짜 보기 좋아요. (du bun womaenseu jinjja bogi joayo.) Your womance is really lovely to watch. ✓ (to two women who are actually a couple) 두 분 진짜 잘 어울려요. (du bun jinjja jal eoullyeoyo.) You two really suit each other. → 워맨스 (womaenseu) is a name for relationships that are not romantic. Used on an actual couple, it shrinks their relationship down to friendship — which comes off as rude.

✗ (presenting at a company workshop) 저희 팀은 부장님과 저의 워맨스로 굴러갑니다. (jeohui timeun bujangnimgwa jeoui womaenseuro gulleogamnida.) Our team runs on the womance between the department head and me. ✓ (presenting at a company workshop) 저희 팀은 부장님과의 두터운 신뢰로 굴러갑니다. (jeohui timeun bujangnimgwaui duteoun silloero gulleogamnida.) Our team runs on the deep trust between the department head and me. → It’s slang that grew up on the internet, so its temperature is light. Lay it over a relationship with a rank gap and it sounds like you’re teasing your boss. This is a word for peers, or for talking about fiction.

Example Sentences by Situation

1) Posting your reaction on social media after finishing a drama

이 드라마 진짜 워맨스 맛집이다. i deurama jinjja womaenseu matjibida. (This drama really knows how to do a womance.)

맛집 (matjip) originally means “a restaurant with great food,” but these days it’s used broadly for “a place or a work that is exceptionally good at something.” Stuck onto 워맨스 (womaenseu), it becomes a compliment: “a drama that draws the relationships between its women characters brilliantly.”

2) To an old friend, half joking and half serious

우리 이 정도면 워맨스 아니냐? uri i jeongdomyeon womaenseu aninya? (At this point, don’t we count as a womance?)

This is what you throw at a friend who has watched you through ten years of moves, breakups, and resignations. When people call their own relationship a 워맨스 (womaenseu), they say it like this — half laughing. Declare it seriously and it just gets awkward.

3) In formal writing or a review, in polite speech

이번 시즌은 로맨스보다 워맨스가 중심입니다. ibeon sijeuneun romaenseuboda womaenseuga jungsimimnida. (This season is built around the women’s relationships more than the romance.)

Slang though it is, it sits comfortably in polite speech in criticism and journalism. The word itself isn’t impolite — you just have to be careful about pointing it directly at real people.

Formal Speech, Casual Speech, and Similar Expressions

워맨스 (womaenseu) is a noun, so it carries no honorific level of its own. You just change the end of the sentence — with a friend, 워맨스 좋다 (womaenseu jota); in a formal setting, 워맨스가 인상적이었습니다 (womaenseuga insangjeogieotseumnida). That said, as we saw above, attaching this word to a relationship with someone older or senior stays awkward no matter how polite you make the ending.

Expression	Temperature & Intensity	Where It’s Used
워맨스 (womaenseu)	Hot and story-sized, mixed with admiration	Reacting to dramas and films, joking among peers. Not used about seniors
브로맨스 (beuromaenseu)	Same temperature as 워맨스, just about men	Same places. Used for a relationship between two men
케미 (kemi)	Light and immediate; about the “fit,” not the relationship	Any pairing of actors or characters, mixed-gender or same-gender
절친 (jeolchin)	Warm but understated	Everyday conversation anywhere. Introducing your own friend
우정 (ujeong)	Neutral, somewhat literary	Writing, speeches, formal occasions

케미 (kemi) comes from the English word chemistry, and it points at “the reaction you get when you put these two side by side.” You can use it after a single scene. 워맨스 (womaenseu), on the other hand, is a name that only sticks once a relationship has accumulated. Two people with great 케미 (kemi) in episode 1 become a 워맨스 (womaenseu) once they’ve protected each other all the way to episode 12.

Cultural Background — The Name That Came After Bromance

The word-building is simple. English bromance (brother + romance) came into Korean and settled in as 브로맨스 (beuromaenseu); then woman was slotted in where brother had been, and 워맨스 (womaenseu) was born. So the word looks English, but it grew up on the Korean internet, and carrying it straight back into English doesn’t quite land. That’s exactly why Emily said in the conversation that there was “no exact word.”

The very fact that it came after bromance tells you the word’s history. The intense bond between two men got a name first; the bond between two women got one much later. For a long time in Korean dramas, a female character was either the male lead’s counterpart or a rival fighting over that spot. When two women sat down across from each other, the topic was usually a man.

As works that shook up that structure piled up, the word 워맨스 (womaenseu) gained force. 검색어를 입력하세요 WWW (Search: WWW, tvN, 2019), about the ambition and solidarity of three women working in the search-portal industry. 마인 (Mine, tvN, 2021), where a daughter-in-law of a conglomerate family and the eldest daughter-in-law start out as enemies and end up as each other’s staunchest allies. 술꾼도시여자들 (Work Later, Drink Now, TVING, 2021), the story of three friends who sit down with a drink every night and see each other all the way down to the bottom. 스물다섯 스물하나 (Twenty-Five Twenty-One, tvN, 2022), in which two fencers who meet as rivals and come to understand each other more deeply than anyone else carry a story arc as big as the romance. While these shows were airing, community message boards filled up with the word 워맨스 (womaenseu) in their thread titles.

So knowing this word isn’t a matter of memorizing one piece of slang. It’s knowing what Korean drama audiences had been thirsty for — and knowing the moment that thirst got a name. Next time you watch a Korean drama, if your heart moves more at two women wordlessly sharing a bowl of ramyeon than at the leads’ kiss scene — congratulations, you’ve already fallen for 워맨스 (womaenseu).

Today’s Quiz

Your friend Su-min comes back from watching a new drama and says this:

남녀 주인공 연애는 솔직히 별로였는데, 여주인공이랑 그 회사 선배 둘이 나오는 장면은 진짜 미쳤어. 12화에서 선배가 여주인공 대신 사표 내는 거 보고 울었잖아. namnyeo juingong yeonaeneun soljikhi byeolloyeonneunde, yeojuingong-irang geu hoesa seonbae duri naoneun jangmyeoneun jinjja michyeosseo. sibi-hwaeseo seonbaega yeojuingong daesin sapyo naeneun geo bogo ureotjana. (Honestly, the romance between the male and female leads was nothing special, but the scenes with the female lead and that senior colleague of hers were insane. I cried watching the senior hand in her resignation in place of the lead in episode 12.)

What is Su-min raving about right now?

① 로맨스 (romaenseu) ② 워맨스 (womaenseu) ③ 브로맨스 (beuromaenseu)

Answer: ②

Two women characters giving up what’s theirs for each other, and that relationship moving the viewer more than the male-female romance did — there’s no more precise picture of 워맨스 (womaenseu) than that. ① is the male-female lead side, which is the part Su-min called “nothing special,” and ③ is a word for a relationship between two men, so it doesn’t fit this scene.