martial art
- noun
- /ˈmɑrʃəl ɑrt/
- 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.
- He's now set up martial arts schools in Kenya, Nepal.
- I grew up doing martial arts and have a black belt in Taekwondo.
- I'd actually like to take the martial arts and remove the label self defence.
- So this is like, I mean, this like the whole basically martial arts community is watching this.
- There's three people, there's three types of people that go to martial arts.
- That draw line Wu Tang martial arts is internal.
- Technically, martial arts is the art of war.
- So it's ironic you I didn't learn martial arts to have a sport.
- See for the martial arts side of things.
- And thank you Wired for letting me give you some martial arts training support.
- This next joke is specifically for fans of the martial arts cult classic film Bloodsport.
- And he was learning martial arts for some huge blockbuster that he was in.
- I martial arts on and off for my whole life.
Examples
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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?
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Anybody here ever do martial arts or anything?
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See for the martial arts side of things.
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And people in the martial arts understand this.
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I mean, I started doing martial arts when I was 8 years old.
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I grew up doing martial arts and have a black belt in Taekwondo.
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Martial arts is something that I've always been pursuing.
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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
Surface Forms
Morphology
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.