Kimchee or Kimchi: Which Is Correct?

The standard spelling is kimchi — it is the headword in Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford dictionaries, and the form you should use everywhere. Kimchee is not a misspelling, though: it is a recorded English variant of the same word, an older romanization of Korean 김치 that Merriam-Webster’s dictionary files under its kimchi entry and that Oxford lists alongside the headword. The difference is not meaning — both spellings name the same dish — but status: kimchi is the spelling the dictionaries, the press, and Korean restaurants put on their signs.

What kimchi is

Kimchi is the famous Korean dish of salted, fermented vegetables — most famously napa cabbage and Korean radish — seasoned with garlic, red chili pepper, ginger, scallions, and often salted seafood such as anchovy paste. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a spicy, pungent vegetable dish that consists of one or more pickled and fermented vegetables… and that is the national dish of South Korea.” It is served at nearly every Korean meal, appears in hundreds of regional varieties (baechu-kimchi, kkakdugi, dongchimi, and more), and has become a global food word — which is exactly why its spelling settled the way it did.

Note the word’s grammar: Oxford treats kimchi as a mass noun — “a Korean dish of spicy pickled cabbage.” You say “some kimchi,” “a bowl of kimchi,” “too much kimchi,” not “kimchis.” The plural is vanishingly rare in English, and the word takes singular agreement: “Kimchi is spicy,” never “kimchi are spicy.”

Why two spellings exist

Both spellings are attempts to write Korean 김치 in the Roman alphabet, and they come from different eras of romanization. The Korean word is pronounced roughly [kim.tɕʰi] — kim-chee — and early English encounters with it produced phonetic spellings like kimchee, with the double e doing the work of marking a long ee sound for English readers.

The spelling kimchi won out for two reasons. First, it reflects the McCune–Reischauer romanization of Korean, the scholarly system that rendered 김치 as kimch’i — the ch for the aspirated consonant, the i standing in for the final vowel. As that system became the standard scholarly transliteration through the twentieth century, kimchi became the spelling that appeared in academic writing, journalism, and eventually dictionaries. Merriam-Webster records the first known English use of kimchi in 1888, giving it well over a century of printed history.

Second, kimchi had institutional luck. When Korean food went global in the 2000s and 2010s, the press, cookbooks, and restaurant signage converged on the dictionary headword. Today the New York Times, the BBC, and Korean government cultural materials all write kimchi. A spelling that dominates both dictionaries and menus is not going to be displaced by a variant.

The checked status of each spelling

This is where the dictionary research matters, because the instinct is to declare one spelling right and the other a mistake. The dictionaries refuse to cooperate with that instinct:

• kimchi — the headword in Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Collins. The universal standard, in both British and American English.
• kimchee — a recorded variant, not a misspelling. Merriam-Webster’s kimchee entry redirects into the kimchi definition; Oxford-family dictionaries list “also kimchee” right after the headword. It is the older, phonetic spelling, still found in older cookbooks and some restaurant names.

So the hierarchy is clear: kimchi first, kimchee a legitimate but secondary form. You would never be corrected for writing kimchee, but in current writing it reads as slightly dated — the way omelet reads next to omelette in reverse, or the way an older romanization of any foreign word eventually looks.

Pronunciation

Both spellings are pronounced the same: /ˈkɪmtʃi/ — kim-CHEE, with the stress on the first syllable. Oxford gives UK /ˈkɪmtʃi/, and the same form is standard in American English. The final vowel is the short i of cheese, not the long ee the double-e of kimchee might suggest to an English reader: the Korean vowel is a crisp [i], closer to the i in kimchi than the drawn-out ee in kimchee implies. One common mispronunciation to avoid: kim-CHAI (rhyming with “chai”) is wrong — the second syllable is chee, always.

Correct and incorrect, in sentences

Sentence	Verdict	Why
The restaurant serves excellent kimchi.	✓ Correct	Standard headword spelling; the safe choice everywhere.
The restaurant serves excellent kimchee.	✓ Acceptable	A recorded dictionary variant, but dated next to kimchi.
Kimchi is a staple of Korean cuisine.	✓ Correct	Mass noun; singular verb agreement.
She added some kimchi to the fried rice.	✓ Correct	Natural quantifier (some) for a mass noun.
Kimchi are spicy and fermented.	✗ Wrong	Mass noun takes a singular verb: “kimchi is spicy.”
He ordered three kimchis.	✗ Wrong	The plural is not used; say “three servings of kimchi” or “three kinds of kimchi.”
The menu lists kimchee as “Korean pickle.”	✓ Acceptable (on a menu)	Established variant; fine on signage, but kimchi is the stronger choice in prose.

Common mistakes

“Correcting” kimchee to kimchi as if it were a typo. The reverse of the usual error. Kimchee is a dictionary-recorded variant with over a century of use behind it; red-penning it on someone’s menu or family recipe misses the point. Prefer kimchi in your own writing, but don’t treat kimchee as ignorance.

Pluralizing kimchi. Learners regularly write kimchis, and it is almost never right. Kimchi is a mass noun; varieties are counted with kinds of or types of kimchi, servings with bowls of or servings of kimchi.

Mispronouncing the second syllable. Kim-CHAI (like “chai tea”) is the most common error among first-time readers. It is kim-CHEE — /ˈkɪmtʃi/ — in both British and American English.

Capitalizing it mid-sentence. Kimchi is a common noun, not a proper noun; it takes a capital only at the start of a sentence. (The same goes for kimchee.)

Assuming every fermented vegetable is kimchi. Kimchi is the Korean national dish with a specific preparation (salted, fermented, chili-seasoned); calling any pickled vegetable kimchi is like calling any cheese cheddar.

FAQs

Which is correct: “kimchi” or “kimchee”?

Kimchi is the standard spelling — the headword in every major dictionary and the form used by the press and Korean cultural institutions. Kimchee is a recognized variant, not a misspelling, but it reads as old-fashioned in current writing.

Is “kimchee” a misspelling?

No. Merriam-Webster maintains a kimchee entry that routes to the kimchi definition, and Oxford-family dictionaries list it as an accepted variant (“also kimchee“). It is an older phonetic romanization of Korean 김치. Use kimchi yourself, but don’t flag kimchee as an error.

How do you pronounce “kimchi”?

/ˈkɪmtʃi/ — kim-CHEE, stress on the first syllable, in both British and American English. The second syllable rhymes with cheese, not chai.

Is “kimchi” singular or plural?

It is a mass (uncountable) noun: “Kimchi is delicious,” “some kimchi,” “a lot of kimchi.” There is no standard plural; count varieties with “kinds of kimchi.”

Where does the word “kimchi” come from?

Korean 김치. Merriam-Webster traces the English word to Korean kimch’i (a McCune–Reischauer-style romanization) and records its first known English use in 1888. The competing spelling kimchee is an older phonetic rendering of the same Korean word.

Takeaway

Write kimchi: it is the dictionary headword, the spelling on the menus, and the form a century of English usage has settled on. Keep kimchee in your mental file as a legitimate variant — a piece of romanization history, recorded by Merriam-Webster and Oxford, not a typo to be hunted down. Pronounce it kim-CHEE, treat it as a mass noun, and you have the whole word: one spelling to use, one variant to recognize, and a dish that needs no further introduction.

Sources: Merriam-Webster defines kimchi as “a spicy, pungent vegetable dish… the national dish of South Korea,” traces it to Korean kimch’i with first known use in 1888, and files kimchee as a variant entry; Cambridge lists kimchi as its headword; Oxford-family dictionaries give UK /ˈkɪmtʃi/ with “also kimchee” as a variant and treat the word as a mass noun. Further reading: Merriam-Webster — kimchee; Cambridge Dictionary — kimchi.