Word.ws English Dictionary

hoobae

hoobae noun: an underclassman or junior, in the context of Korea.

Noun

hoobae (plural hoobaes)

  1. An underclassman or junior, in the context of Korea.
    • I love Korean culture, especially the sunbae/hoobae relationship. And in baseball, you are always someone's sunbae or hoobae.2010, "The Man in the Middle", Busan HAPS, October/November 2010, page 9
    • It is expected that hoobaes treat their sunbaes with respect.2012, Seung Hee Yoo, David Matsumoto, “Korean Culture Explored Through Survey Research”, in Anastacia Kurylo, editor, Inter/Cultural Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture, page 400
  2. (South Korean idol fandom) A newer or less experienced idol.

Forms of hoobae

pluralhoobaes
alternative formhubae

Origin of hoobae

Borrowed from Korean 후배(後輩) (hubae, “junior”). Doublet of kohai.

Questions about hoobae

What does hoobae mean?
Hoobae means an underclassman or junior, in the context of Korea.
What part of speech is hoobae?
Hoobae is a noun.
What is the plural of hoobae?
The plural of hoobae is hoobaes.

Words near hoobae in the dictionary

  1. hoo-hars
  2. hoo-has
  3. hoo-hoo
  4. hoo-hoos
  5. hooah
  6. hoobae
  7. hoobaes
  8. Hoobler
  9. Hooblers
  10. hooch
  11. hooched

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hoobae (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hoobae.wav.

Cite this entry: “hoobae.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hoobae. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.