ninja -
noun and adjective Also written
Ninja (Lifestyle and Leisure) (War and
Weaponry ) noun: A Japanese warrior trained in ninjutsu, the art of stealth or invisibility, which was developed in feudal times in Japan and later practised more widely as a martial art. adjective: Of, belonging to, or characteristic of the
ninjas or their techniques. Etymology: A direct borrowing from Japanese, in which it is a compound
word meaning 'practitioner of stealth', made up of the elements nin 'stealth' and ja 'person'. History and Usage: Ninjutsu is
an ancient art in Japan--it was practised by the warriors employed by feudal war lords for espionage and assassination--but the words
ninja and ninjutsu
were hardly used in English-language sources before the seventies. A rare use in spy
fiction comes in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (1964):
My agents are trained in one of the arts most dreaded in Japan--ninjutsu...They are now learning to be
ninja or 'stealers in'. The rise of interest in oriental martial arts in the seventies meant that some Westerners became interested in the history of the
ninjas and started to try to emulate them.
Ninjas also began to figure in role-playing and fantasy games. What brought the words
ninja and ninjutsu into popular use, though, was the commercial success in the late eighties of the Turtles (
whose full name, in the
US at least, was Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles). I'm inside a recreated Japanese
ninja training hall--on the walls a collection of exotic chains, knives, swords, whips, staffs, and other sadistic tools that would
make a hardened dominatrix blush. Omni Mar. 1990, p.
64 The first level
[in a computer game] starts
off with
Ninjas suspended from trees. CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p.
28 There is far more to the graphic novel than
recording the exploits of Donatello
and his ninja friends. Times Educational Supplement 2 Nov. 1990,
Review section, p. 1
