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First attested in the Seokbo sangjeol (釋譜詳節 / 석보상절), 1447, as Middle Korean니맣〮 (Yale: nìmáh), from pre-Middle Korean *nìmák. Beyond Middle Korean, the second syllable in Jeolla dialect대망(daemang, “forehead”) and Jeju대맹이(daemaeng'i, “head”) may suggest that *-mak was originally a separate morpheme; these two words seem to share the same first morpheme as 대가리(daegari, “head”), which is widely recognized as a compound. *nìmák may then originally have been multimorphemic. However, it is also possible that 대망(daemang, “forehead”) is simply unrelated and has no bearing on the etymology of 이마(ima).
Note: Korean varieties also have vulgar 이마빡 and variants; the extent to which the vulgar form is acceptable in conversation, or even colloquially preferred, will vary according to dialect.
This table is an amalgamation of surveys of speakers mostly born before 1950 and may not reflect the language of younger speakers, which has lexically converged towards the standard Seoul dialect in both North and South Koreas.
