Nunchucks

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Grammarist

For the word denoting the Okinawan weapon made of two sticks linked by a short chain or rope, nunchucks is by far the most common form in 21st-century English. Several alternatives appear to varying degrees; nunchaku (the most faithful English rendering of the Japanese word), nunchuks, nunchuck, and nunchuk are all somewhat common, and there are several other forms that are unjustifiably made two words or hyphenated (e.g., nun-chucks or nun chuk). None is as common as nunchucks in today’s English. This is borne out across the English-speaking world.