Korean slang profile
갭이어
gaepieo
A year between school and university
A year after finishing high school spent resting and gaining experiences instead of going directly to university.
- Expanded form
- gap yeargap year
- Other spellings
- —
- Earliest source found
- 2004
- Documented trend period
- Not verified
This is the earliest source we have verified, not the date the term was coined.
01Examples, with English translations
- Example by Julimmal
그는 갭이어 동안 여행과 봉사 활동을 경험했다.
During the gap year, they traveled and volunteered.
02Documented history
- 2004The National Institute of Korean Language’s 2004 new-word collection lists the headword “갭이어” and its definition.[1]
03Origin & word formation
The collection defines it as a year in Britain between finishing high school and starting university. Who first used it and when have not been verified.
Evidence for the origin explanationMedium
The headword, definition, and source-language spelling in the 2004 collection were compared. The original older articles re-quoted there were not directly opened, so their dates were not used for firstSeen. The first coinage and spread remain unverified. This covers the narrower sense found in the source at the time, not every kind of leave or career gap.
04Sources
Original titles and links are preserved. An English translation does not replace the original source.
- 2004년 신어 (국립국어원)Published 2004Original source checked Nov 14, 2026