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