In Japanese, "te" means hand, and "kara" means both "Chinese" and "empty", so karate originally meant "Chinese hand", since it was derived from the Chinese kung

In Japanese, "te" means hand, and "kara" means both "Chinese" and "empty", so karate originally meant "Chinese hand", since it was derived from the Chinese kung fu, but its meaning later was changed into "empty hand". Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate#Etymology