고지식하다

In Hangul form: First attested in the Worin seokbo (月印釋譜 / 월인석보), 1459, as Middle Korean 고디식다 (Yale: kwoti-sikta).

The verb was originally a phrase involving the adverb 고디 (Yale: kwoti) "in a straight way; righteously" and Old Korean 爲只 (*SIk-, “to act”), thus "to act righteously". Early Hangul texts preserve this positive meaning. However, by the late sixteenth century, the verb had eventually come to mean "to attempt obsessively to act righteously", and from that meaning to the adjectival "to be self-righteous; to be stubborn".

Once the word had become an adjective and the Old Korean etymology had long been forgotten, it was misunderstood as a corruption of an adjective formed by the adjective-deriving suffix 하다 (hada), leading to the modern form via hypercorrection. This began to occur in the sixteenth century, and the original non-hada form had disappeared by the seventeenth century.

• IPA^(key): [ko̞d͡ʑiɕʰikʰa̠da̠]
• Phonetic hangeul: [고지시카다]

고지식하다 • (gojisikhada) (infinitive 고지식해 or 고지식하여, sequential 고지식하니)

1. to be self-righteous; to be stubborn; to be inflexible

   우리 교수님은 진짜 고지식해서 컴퓨터도 못 쓰게 해.

   Uri gyosu-nim-eun jinjja gojisikhaeseo keompyuteo-do mot sseuge hae.

   Our professor is really inflexible, so he doesn't even let us computers.

• 고집 (固執, gojip, “stubbornness”)