What does “블박” mean in Korean?

블박 is everyday Korean for a car dashcam. It’s the chopped-down form of 블랙박스 — itself the English “black box,” borrowed straight from the aviation flight recorder. Korean loves squeezing long loanwords down to two syllables, so 블랙박스 loses its middle and becomes 블박. It’s casual, spoken Korean: nobody says the full four-syllable mouthful when they’re talking about the camera on their dash.

The two-syllable clip is a hugely productive habit: 셀프 카메라 (“self camera”) becomes 셀카 (selfie), and 아르바이트 (“part-time job”) becomes 알바. Here the driver narrates 블박차 갑니다 — “dashcam car coming through” — stacking the clipped 블박 onto 차 (car) to name the recording vehicle itself. Recognising the pattern lets you decode dozens of these compressed loanwords that never appear in a textbook’s full form.