Karate comes from the Japanese kara meaning 'empty', and te meaning 'hand'.

To appreciate the derivation of the modern term of karate, it is important to reflect upon Okinawa’s history, which has included periods of independent rule, allegiance to China and then to Japan. From the late 14th to the early 17th Centuries, the cultural life and politics of Okinawa was most influenced by China. This extended to the Chinese banning the carrying of weapons in 1477. Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand why Okinawa developed hand-to-hand combat techniques to compensate for the loss of the right to carry arms.

For many centuries, the martial arts of Okinawa were generally referred to as te (hand).

Te often varied from one region to another. So to distinguish among the various types of te, the word was often prefaced with its area of origin such as Shuri-te, Naha-te and Tomari-te. Each area (and the teachers who lived there) had particular kata, techniques, and principles that distinguished their local version of te from the others.

In the early part of the 20th century, a number of formal organisations were founded to oversee Okinawan martial arts, and due to their influence, the word karate came to be widely adopted as the collective term for the various regional styles that had developed over the decades.

Credit is given to a specific meeting held in Okinawa in 1936 for the formal adoption of the modern written kanji characters for karate. The new phrase was in fact a modification of the already established kanji script for the martial arts that translated more closely to ‘Tang Dynasty hand’ - a profound reminder that the many different martial art styles of today share a common Chinese ancestry stretching back over many centuries.

It is common to see the addition of do to the end of the word karate. Do is a suffix having numerous meanings, including ‘road’, ‘path’, ‘route’ and ‘way’. The implication being that many styles of Karate are not just techniques for fighting, but have spiritual elements when pursued as disciplines. Thus, an appropriate translation of karatedo would be 'the way of the empty hand'.