Home › Words › T › tonfatonfatonfa means A traditional hand-held Okinawan weapon, a wooden stick with a perpendicular handle, traditionally wielded in pairs.EtymologyFrom Japanese トンファー (tonfā).nounA traditional hand-held Okinawan weapon, a wooden stick with a perpendicular handle, traditionally wielded in pairs.Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).Words closest in meaningBy meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.baton 53% match — A staff or truncheon, used for various purposes. vs tonfa →taiaha 52% match — A traditional Māori wooden staff weapon, used for short, sharp strikes or stabbing thrusts, usually decorated on one end. vs tonfa →kubotan 52% match — A small baton-like rod constituting a self-defense tool; its principal use is in applying uncomfortable holds to someone when subduing them. vs tonfa →fauchard 52% match — An early European weapon consisting of a curved blade on a long pole. vs tonfa →bokken 51% match — A wooden katana, used as a training sword. vs tonfa →ninjato 50% match — A straight-bladed short sword, commonly appearing in works of fiction as a weapon of the shinobi in feudal Japan. vs tonfa →bokuto 50% match — bokken, a wooden katana used for practice. vs tonfa →quarterstaff 50% match — A wooden staff with an approximate length between 2 and 2.5 meters, sometimes tipped with iron, used as a weapon in rural England during the Early Modern period. vs tonfa →