뱁새 is the Korean name for the bird known as the Korean crow-tit, and 눈 is the Korean word for eyes, so 뱁새눈 literally means Korean crow-tit eyes, but Koreans use the phrase 뱁새눈 to mean narrow eyes and jokingly refer to people with extremely narrow eyes as 뱁새눈이, with the 이 meaning person. But if you look at a photo of a Korean crow-tit, its eyes are round, not narrow, so how did 뱁새눈 come to mean narrow eyes? (LINK for the 뱁새 photos)
In Korean, the scientific classification of the 뱁새 is 붉은머리오목눈이, which translates as read-headed (붉은머리) sunken-eyed bird (오목눈이). Sunken-eyed bird? They do not look very sunken to me.
Anyway, though it is possible the eyes of the 뱁새 are slightly sunken, it is pretty obvious that they are round, not narrow, so, again, how did 뱁새눈 come to mean narrow eyes? I have a theory.
Up until at least the 19th century, the name of the bird was 볍새, not 뱁새, and the name 볍새 sounds very similar to the word 볍씨, which means rice seed. Therefore, I wonder if 뱁새눈 was originally 볍씨눈.
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| 볍씨 |
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| 뱁새눈 |
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| LINK |
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