금수저 (geumsujeo)

What it means

1. 1.

   Someone born wealthy, whose start in life was bought for them. Part of a full ranking — 금 (gold), 은 (silver), 동 (bronze), 흙 (dirt) — that Koreans use half-jokingly and half-seriously about their own prospects.

Literally: Gold spoon.

Examples with translations

• 쟤는 금수저라 걱정이 없어.

  He was born into money, so he's got nothing to worry about.

• 수저 계급론이 괜히 나온 게 아니야.

  There's a reason people talk about the spoon classes.

Where it comes from

A reworking of the English 'born with a silver spoon', which Korean expanded into a graded hierarchy after the 2015 debates about inherited inequality. The English idiom describes one condition; the Korean version describes a class system.

First attested: around 2015

Other forms

Romanised as:

geumsujeo