Judo
nounA Japanese martial art and Olympic sport in which competitors use throws, holds, and balance rather than strikes to subdue an opponent.
How to spell judo
4 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce judo
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does judo mean?
- nounA Japanese martial art and Olympic sport in which competitors use throws, holds, and balance rather than strikes to subdue an opponent.
Judo in a sentence
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She earned her black belt in judo after eight years of training.
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The local sports centre offers judo classes for adults on weeknights.
Where does judo come from?
Language of origin: Japanese
Judo comes directly from Japanese, where it is written with two characters: ju, meaning 'gentle' or 'yielding', and do, meaning 'way' or 'path'. The name therefore translates literally as 'the gentle way', a description of a martial art built around using an opponent's force and momentum rather than meeting it head on. The discipline was founded in 1882 by Jigoro Kano, who refined techniques from older jujutsu schools into a safer sporting and educational system. English adopted the word in the early twentieth century as the art spread westward, and it gained huge international visibility when judo became an Olympic sport in 1964 at the Tokyo Games. The same 'do' element ('way') also appears in related borrowings such as 'kendo' and 'aikido', which is a useful reminder that the spelling ends in a plain o, not the more familiar English -ow.
How the word is built
- ju (gentleness/yielding)
- do (way/path)
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