clothing. Hanbok was again used in an 1895 document to distinguish between Korean and Japanese clothing. These two usages predate the Korean Empire's popularization of the use of the hanja character to describe the Korean people.

Beginning in 1900, Korean newspapers used the hanja character ' in words that described Korean clothing, such as , , and . Hanbok was used in a 1905 newspaper article to describe the clothing of one of the righteous armies.