꺾다

First attested in the Seokbo sangjeol (釋譜詳節 / 석보상절), 1447, as Middle Korean 거ᇧ다〮 (Yale: kèsk-tá). The initial consonant underwent spontaneous gemination in the eighteenth century, a phenomenon recurrent in the Modern stage of Korean and motivated by sound-symbolic effects.

The Old Korean ancestor is attested in the infinitive form as 折叱可 (*KEska) in the Heonhwa-ga, an eighth-century hyangga poem. While the nature of Old Korean orthography—where only the final phonemes of the verb stem are shown—makes an exact phonological transcription of this inflected verb impossible, the form demonstrates that the Old Korean word for "to snap" (equivalent to Chinese 折) also ended in *-sk or *-skV.

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key):
• Phonetic hangul:

꺾다 • (kkeokda) (infinitive 꺾어, sequential 꺾으니)

1. (transitive) to snap, to pluck (e.g. a branch, a flower)