The Etymology of Dojo
Dojo arrived in English along with judo and aikido during and after the Second World War, but in Japan the word is much older and originally religious.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ DΕjΕ (ιε ΄) literally means place of the way, where ι carries the same dΕ as judΕ and bushidΕ. It began as a translation of the Sanskrit bodhimaαΉαΈa β the seat where the historical Buddha attained enlightenment β and was used in medieval Japanese Buddhism for halls of meditation and ritual practice. During the Edo period (1603β1868) the rising samurai class adopted the term for their own training spaces, and modern martial schools inherited the usage. When western judo students of the 1940s and 50s reported on their training, they kept the Japanese word, and dojo entered English-language sport vocabulary by 1942. In contemporary English the word has expanded again β coding dojos, theatre dojos, writers' dojos β preserving the underlying idea of a dedicated place where disciplined practice happens.