What do you think "kung fu" originally means?

Question

According to Wikipedia "Its original meaning is somewhat different, referring to one's expertise in any skill, not necessarily martial."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_fu_%28term%29
I've heard about other possible meanings like "free time" or "spare time". How do you think I can make sure that Wikipedia's answer is correct. Thanks.

Answer 1

功夫 gōng fu has meanings such as: skill; art; kung fu; labor; effort
As far as I can tell, it does not mean anything like free/spare time. Neither my ABC Chinese to English dictionary, nor the one at mandarintools.com gave any definitaion with any character sets to say that it would mean spare time. the word for that is 空(儿) kong(r)

Answer 2

Kung fu (Gung fu) doesn’t have a direct translation into English, however it roughly translates as "Skillful Means or Method"; "Hard work" or "achievement through great effort"; thus cooking is a chef's Kung fu. Although Kung Fu (Gung Fu) is generally used these days to refer to Chinese Martial Arts, the proper term is wushu (Wu - War, military or "Martial" consisting of the ideograms of "Stop" and "Conflict" and Shu - Skill, art or method.) Although, the contemporary meaning of wushu is a Chinese martial sport focusing on the presentation of elaborate forms called "taolu" as well as free sparing called "sanda"

An interesting fact is that while most westerners have no clue what sanda is or how the fights are conducted they tend to think of Chinese martial arts as ineffective and less aggressive then other arts like Muay Thai, Shoot fighting and kickboxing. In reality, Chinese sanda matches are generally conducted in a large ring with no padding except light weight gloves similar to what is used in the UFC and although elbow attacks are not permitted, the use of knees are. The art is VERY aggressive and I do believe if more westerns saw these matches, they would be amassed as just how aggressive and combative they are.

I hope this helps!

Answer 3

That's the metaphysical question for our era: "How do I know that Wikipedia is correct?"

Some of my friends with martial arts training used 'kung fu' to mean 'skill', regardless of context - so 'street kung fu' meant 'the ability to cross a busy street unharmed'.

Answer 4

in scotland, if someone's staggering about 'cos they've had too much to drink then a similarly inebriated person might be heard to say:

"ish dat kung fu'?"

which, translated, means "is that 'front bottom' full", implying the drunk person has had too much to drink, and that, in fact, he is a lady garden.

... eh, just kidding ...

Answer 5

'Kung Fu' literally means 'Merit Master'