Korean slang profile
혼술
honsul
Drinking alone
Drinking alcohol by yourself.
- Expanded form
- 혼자 술 마시기Drinking alone
- Other spellings
- —
- Earliest source found
- Oct 31, 2016
- Documented trend period
- Around 2016~
This is the earliest source we have verified, not the date the term was coined.
01Examples, with English translations
- Example by Julimmal
퇴근하고 집에서 혼술했다.
I had a drink by myself at home after work.
- Quoted from a source
혼자 술 마신다는 뜻의 '혼술'[1]
'혼술' which means drinking alone
English translation by Julimmal.
02Documented history
- October 2016Yonhap News analyzed the amount of mentions on SNS and reported that the amount of mentions of words such as ‘Solple’, ‘혼술’, ‘혼밥’, and ‘혼놀’ increased by more than 10 times on average during the survey period. ‘혼술’, which means drinking alone, was mentioned only 14 times in 2010, but it is said to have surged to over 52,000 this year.[1]
03Origin & word formation
Combines 혼자, alone, with 술, alcohol. A 2016 Yonhap News article explicitly explains it as drinking alone. Who first used it and when have not been verified.
Evidence for the origin explanationHigh
The article explicitly supports both the expansion and a change in how often the term was mentioned. Who first used it is unknown.
04Sources
Original titles and links are preserved. An English translation does not replace the original source.
- “힘든 인간관계보단 나홀로”…‘관태기’에 지친 사람들 (연합뉴스)Published Oct 31, 2016Original source checked Nov 5, 2026