Slang · Advanced · May 23, 2026
내 농담에 완전 갑분싸 됐어
nae nong-da-me wan-jeon gap-bun-ssa dwae-sseo
“My joke completely killed the mood”
Slang of the week · heard in variety-show captions and group chats
Word by word
The line, explained
You tell a joke. Nobody laughs. The silence has a temperature. Korean has a three-syllable word for that drop in temperature, and once you know it you will see it printed across half the variety shows you watch. 갑분싸 is slang, but using it well needs a feel for Korean social physics: who caused the chill, how it is named afterwards, and how a self-aware confession like today's line helps everyone move on. Let's break the sentence down and then the word.
내 농담에 is 내, 'my', 농담, 'joke', and 에. The particle here is causal as much as locative: 'at my joke, because of my joke'. 완전 is the casual intensifier Koreans use constantly, a clipped 완전히 that means 'totally'. 됐어 is 되다, 'to become', in the past: 'it became'. So the skeleton is 'at my joke, it totally became X', and X is the mood-kill itself. Note the subject is the room, not the speaker; Korean lets the atmosphere do the becoming.
갑분싸 is built from a full sentence. 갑자기 is 'suddenly', 분위기 is 'atmosphere, mood', and 싸해지다 is 'to go cold', from 싸하다, the adjective for a cold tingling feeling, the chill you get from menthol or from dread. Take the first syllable of each, 갑, 분, 싸, and you have the word. Koreans compress phrases this way all the time, 아아 for 아이스 아메리카노, 현타 for 현실 자각 타임, and understanding the habit unlocks dozens of words at once.
Grammatically 갑분싸 behaves like a noun for a state. The room 됐어, became it. A person 만들었어, made it. You will also hear 갑분싸 시키다, 'to cause 갑분싸', and 갑분싸 분위기 as a modifier. It is firmly casual and firmly online in flavour, so it belongs in group chats, captions and conversations with friends, not in anything your boss reads. For a neutral version say 분위기가 싸해졌어 or 분위기가 어색해졌어 (the mood got awkward).
Swap the cause and the confession keeps its shape: 내 질문에 (my question), 내 고백에 (my confession, which in a drama is the classic trigger), 내 실수에 (my slip-up), 내 한마디에 (my one remark). The point of saying it yourself is that it works as repair; naming the chill is the first step to breaking it. So the next time a Korean friend's eyes widen after something you said, beat them to it: 아, 갑분싸. They will laugh, and the temperature will come back up.
Grammar · 갑분싸 + 되다 / 만들다
using 갑분싸 in a sentence
갑분싸 clips 갑자기 분위기 싸해지다, 'the atmosphere suddenly goes cold', into one noun. The room becomes it: 갑분싸 됐어 (it went 갑분싸). A person causes it: 갑분싸 만들었어 (you made it awkward) or 갑분싸 시켰어. Describing the moment: 갑분싸 분위기, 갑분싸 상황. You can also use the long form as a plain sentence, 분위기가 싸해졌어, which is not slang and works in any casual setting. Variety-show subtitles print 갑분싸 in bold over a frozen reaction shot, which is how most non-Koreans first meet it.
- 그 말 하자마자 갑분싸 됐어.The second he said that, the mood died.
- 야, 너 또 갑분싸 만들었어.Dude, you killed the mood again.
- 갑분싸 분위기에서 나만 웃었어.In the dead silence, I was the only one laughing.
Why it hits
Koreans read a room constantly, so having a word for the exact second it freezes was inevitable. 갑분싸 took off in the late 2010s through variety-show captions, where editors freeze the frame on the mood-killer's face. Owning it afterwards, as this line does, is the accepted way to thaw things out.
Practice
Make it yours
Swap one word and the line becomes your own.
내 농담에 완전 갑분싸 됐어
My joke completely killed the mood
Quick check
Which three words does 갑분싸 come from?