Grammar
N을/를 웃돌다
Meaning
AdvancedN eul/reul usdolda
A single verb that says one figure came out above another, with 밑돌다 as its opposite for coming out below. What makes it worth learning as a pattern rather than as vocabulary is where the yardstick goes: the thing being exceeded is the object, marked 을/를, so 예상을 웃돌았다 is 'it came in above expectations' — the benchmark sits in the slot a learner expects to hold the thing that did the exceeding. The object is almost always a benchmark rather than a plain quantity: 예상, 전망치, 지난해 수준, or a stated figure. It belongs to written statistics and report language; the same news read aloud in conversation would use 더 높다.
Form
웃돌다 conjugates like any other ㄹ-final stem — 웃돌았다, 웃도는, 웃돌아 — with the ㄹ dropping before endings that begin in ㄴ or ㅂ (웃돈 결과, 웃돕니다). A degree adverb goes between the object and the verb: 예상을 크게 웃돌았습니다. Its opposite 밑돌다 is built and conjugated exactly the same way (밑돌았다, 밑도는, 밑돈) and takes the same object slot, which is why a single sentence can set the two against each other. Dictionaries record 에 and 보다 frames for both verbs as well, but news writing uses 을/를 so consistently that it is the one to learn first. The spelling is fixed as 웃-, not 윗-.
Examples
실적이 예상을 크게 웃돌았습니다.
The results far exceeded expectations.
From: July Export Prices Rose 49.1%, the Highest in 28 Years and Four Months
관객 수가 백만 명을 웃돌았습니다.
The audience figure came in above one million.
수출은 전망치를 웃돌았지만 내수는 지난해 수준을 밑돌았습니다.
Exports came in above the forecast, but domestic demand fell below last year's level.
Common mistakes & nuance
The particle is the whole difficulty. Korean normally marks a standard of comparison with 보다 (어제보다 덥다), so a reader meeting 예상을 웃돌았다 for the first time can take the object for the subject and get the sentence backwards: it is the results that are above, not the expectations. Keep the rule in sentence form — X가 Y를 웃돌다 means X is the higher one — and the reading holds however long the two noun phrases grow, which in economic writing they do: 수출가격 상승률 36.8%가 수입가격 상승률 9.7%를 크게 웃돈 결과입니다. Two further things. 웃돌다 reports a comparison and passes no judgement of its own — it says which side was higher, not whether the gap was large or welcome, and any such reading has to come from an adverb like 크게 or from the sentence around it. And treat 밑돌다 as part of the same lesson rather than as a later addition: the same articles use it just as readily for a figure coming in below its benchmark, and only that first syllable tells the two apart.
Similar grammar
- N보다
The same comparison, built the other way round. With 보다 the yardstick takes its own particle and the predicate describes the subject: 예상보다 높았습니다. With 웃돌다 the yardstick becomes the object and the verb carries the comparison by itself: 예상을 웃돌았습니다. Because 보다 is the frame learners meet first, the object particle in the second sentence is the thing that trips them — read 을/를 here as 'above' rather than as a signal about who did what.
- N에 달하다 / N에 그치다
Both are report-register verbs for figures, and both come in pairs, but they measure against different things. 달하다 and 그치다 take 에 and place a figure on a scale, adding the writer's verdict that it is a lot or only a little (12%에 그쳤다). 웃돌다 and 밑돌다 take 을/를 and need a second figure to compare against; they say which of two numbers is higher and pass no verdict of their own. So a figure can 달하다 on its own, but nothing can 웃돌다 without something named to exceed.
- N 넘게
Both say a figure is above something, and the difference is what that something is. 넘게 follows a counted round quantity and reports that the real number is higher than it (백 명 넘게 왔습니다) — it is an adverb, so the sentence still needs its own verb. 웃돌다 is the verb, and what it takes is a benchmark: 예상, 전망치, 지난해 수준, or a stated figure someone else produced. That is why 넘게 belongs to plain counting and 웃돌다 to sentences where a result is being held up against a forecast.