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martial art

martial art

75 2.9
A traditional form of fighting practiced for self defense and sport
  • noun
  • /ˈmɑrʃəl ɑrt/
translation icon : arte marcial
  • You ever been to a martial arts tournament like this?
  • martial arts training
  • participation in martial arts
  • a martial arts program

He's now set up martial arts schools in Kenya, Nepal.

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Examples

  • One of my stepbrothers was trained in martial arts and taught me a little.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • - You study any martial arts by any chance?

  • Anybody here ever do martial arts or anything?

  • See for the martial arts side of things.

  • And people in the martial arts understand this.

  • I mean, I started doing martial arts when I was 8 years old.

  • I grew up doing martial arts and have a black belt in Taekwondo.

  • Martial arts is something that I've always been pursuing.

  • I've been watching an awful lot of mixed martial arts videos on YouTube lately.

    Blog text (11)
  • I grew up doing martial arts and have a black belt in Taekwondo.

How Combative

bare-knuckle
2 7.5
combat
854 3.5
martial art
75 2.9

Surface Forms

martial art singular
martial arts plural

Morphology

martial + art

The meaning is directly compositional: 'martial' (related to military/fighting) combined with 'art' (a skill or practice) yields 'skills or practices of fighting/combat.' This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'artes marciales', French 'arts martiaux') and a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the MWE's meaning, despite finer nuances about sport or self-improvement.

Etymology

Martial art literally means 'war skill': martial refers to 'war' and art means 'skill'. It began as a name for fighting skills used in war, and today it describes trained methods for self-defense, sport, and personal growth.