kimchi
Pluralkimchis (some meanings)
- 1A Korean dish of salted and seasoned vegetables such as cabbage or radish, stored in sealed containers to ferment through lactic acid.
The restaurant set out small bowls of kimchi alongside every main course.
He learned to make kimchi from his grandmother, packing the cabbage into sealed jars to sour.
Note
Behind the name is a plain description. Korean gimchi was built from Chinese-derived elements meaning "soaked" and "vegetable," which suits produce salted and left to sour. Kimuchi is a doublet, the same word reaching English by a different route. In the food sense it is usually a mass noun: a bowl of kimchi, kimchi as a side dish. The plural kimchis belongs mostly to the ethnic slur.
- 2An offensive slang term for a Korean person, used as an ethnic slur.
The landlord muttered something ugly, calling the tenant a kimchi as he slammed the door.
Old propaganda posters dehumanized Korean laborers, branding them kimchis in crude print.
Note
Naming people after their food is an old pattern of contempt, and this slur borrows the fermented dish to do it. Kittler and Sucher's Food and Culture (2007) lists it beside "krauts" for Germans and "crackers" for poor white Southerners. It is countable and usually plural, as in Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior II (1994). Quote or discuss it if you must, but never use it of anyone. The neutral word is simply Korean.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Korean 김치 (gimchi), which was formed within Korea from Chinese-derived elements 沉 ("submerged, soaked") and 菜 ("vegetable"), meaning "fermented vegetable." It is a doublet of kimuchi.