kung fu
108
4.4
- noun
- /kʌŋ fu/
- She enrolled in a kung fu class to learn self-defense and improve her fitness.
- Chinese kung fu
- kung fu training
- kung fu films
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Watch on YouTubeSo if you master Kung Fu, it means it's mastering life.
- So if you master Kung Fu, it means it's mastering life.
- But growing up the way we grew up, I picked the traditional Kung Fu, right?
- So his friend Steve turns to him and asks him about Kung Fu.
- OK, but he also happened to be a European full contact Lao GAAR Kung Fu champion.
- Then it's like that moment in The Matrix where NIA realizes he knows Kung Fu.
- And these were choreographed by Yuen Wu Ping, who famously did Fist of Legend and a million other really important Kung Fu films.
- So I'm not just resting on the fact OK, Kung Fu is cool, prayer madness is cool.
- He created Kung Fu about himself, a Chinese man.
Examples
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I still know kung fu.
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Let's see his kung-fu go to work in my neighborhood.
Fiction book (1997) -
But growing up the way we grew up, I picked the traditional Kung Fu, right?
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You wanna watch kung fu tonight?
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Look, guys, I really appreciate all the cool kung fu training and stuff.
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See, when I was a kid, I learned a lot of different kung fu styles.
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So if you master Kung Fu, it means it's mastering life.
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I didn't know Dean knew kung fu.
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Lee was an icon of the Chinese martial arts, particularly Kung Fu and Wing Chun.
Blog text (9) -
Afterward, Teddy was so wound up, he kept leaping around, faking kung fu moves, just like any nine-year-old boy.
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
110
2.9
A traditional form of fighting practiced for self defense and sport
Surface Forms
Morphology
kung + fu
The term is a loanword from Chinese whose parts ('kung', 'fu') are not independent English lexical items with clear meanings, so an English-speaking B1 learner who only 'knows the constituents' would not be able to derive 'a Chinese martial art' from them. Although etymologically related to Chinese concepts of skill, the modern English lexicalization refers to martial arts and is not compositionally predictable in English, making it opaque to learners.
Etymology
Kung fu comes from Chinese words kung and fu and originally meant 'skill gained by hard work'. Because fighting styles need long practice, the word came to mean Chinese fighting arts, so today kung fu usually means those martial arts.