겹다

Etymology 1
a transitive verb meaning "to lose to; to be defeated by; to fail to overcome". The verb has the shape of a -Gwu- causative, but the putative etymon,, is not clearly semantically connected.

In the late fifteenth century, Middle Korean lenited to, which created a series of Korean verb stems which irregularly alternated between coda  and. At some later point, kyey(G)wu- was mistakenly reanalyzed as being such an irregular stem instead of a regular -final stem, resulting in the modern stem. As for the vowel shift, it is likely that with the loss of the Middle Korean consonant G, the stem kyey.wu- was reanalyzed as kye.ywu- after which the second vowel simplified, creating the modern form. Both sound shifts are first widely attested in the eighteenth century. The verb apparently adjectivalized at around the same time, when the object was reanalyzed as the subject of the inflecting stem.

Adjective

 * 1)  to be too much (for someone); to be excessive; to be beyond one's capacity
 * 2)  to be overwhelmed (with emotion); to be beyond restraint; to be uncontrollable

Etymology 2
Presumably from, but appears to have merged phonologically and grammatically with the "to be excessive" adjective above, becoming an adjective and undergoing highly irregular sound shifts.

Adjective

 * 1)  to have already passed