What does “Karaoke” mean?
Karaoke is a Japanese word, even though the origin of the word is not known by many Japanese people.
It is a compound noun generated with “kara” which means empty and “oke” from “orchestra”.
So, the music is played by an orchestra, but the seat for a vocalist is empty. (So,take it!)
Since the part “oke” is taken from a foreign word (for Japanese), the word “karaoke” is written in Katakana. → カラオケ
By the way, “kara(empty) ” is also in the word “Karate” and means empty hand.
