Sunbae (선배) — also romanized as seonbae — is a Korean honorific. As defined on Seoulbeats, it is “a generic term for ‘senior’, and it can be used in the workplace or at school (though it is probably more common at schools, for workplace identifiers tend to be ridiculously complex). ‘Sunbae’ can be used in place of the aforementioned terms when it is not appropriate to use them, generally because the relationship is not quite close enough. Members of different K-pop groups might refer to their industry seniors as ‘sunbaes’ when talking about them in interviews, even if their relationship in private is close enough to use more familiar terms.”