parkour

IPA/pɑːˈkɔː(r)/
IPA/pɑːrˈkɔːr/

parkour — noun

1. a sport, originally from France, where you cross urban spaces on foot by running

1.nounC1
Definition

a sport, originally from France, where you cross urban spaces on foot by running, jumping, vaulting, and climbing over walls, railings, rooftops, and other obstacles, choosing the fastest and most efficient route possible.

Example

Yusuke discovered parkour at fifteen and now trains in Tokyo three times a week.

uncountable: discovered/practised parkour

The documentary follows a group of teenagers who do parkour across the rooftops of Lisbon.

collocation: do parkour

Common collocations
  • do parkour
  • practise parkour
  • a parkour run
  • parkour training
  • parkour gym
Synonyms
  • free running

    very close in meaning; free running adds more flips and tricks for visual style, while parkour focuses on efficient travel

  • l'art du déplacement

    the original French term used by founders; rare in English

Grammar Patterns

do parkour

practise parkour

Usage Note

Almost always uncountable, with no article: say 'do parkour' or 'practise parkour', not 'do a parkour'. The person who does it is called a 'traceur' (male) or 'traceuse' (female), or simply a 'parkour athlete'.

Common Mistakes

Wrong: 'I did a parkour yesterday.' Right: 'I did parkour yesterday.' — parkour is uncountable, so no 'a' and no plural.

Wrong: 'Parkour is a kind of skateboarding.' Right: 'Parkour is a sport done on foot, without any equipment.' — confusing parkour with wheeled sports.

parkour — verb

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Parkour, free running, tricking, and buildering are all athletic disciplines that use the body as the only piece of equipment, but they aim at different things. Parkour is the most goal-driven: the traceur picks two points and tries to travel between them as quickly and efficiently as possible, treating walls, railings, and rooftops as obstacles to clear. Free running shares the same vocabulary of jumps and vaults but adds flips, spins, and stylistic flourishes; the goal is visual flow rather than pure efficiency. Tricking is a floor-based art of acrobatic kicks and twists, with no urban setting at all. Buildering means climbing the outside of buildings, often without jumps, and overlaps with parkour only when the route involves walls. So a teenager racing across a Lisbon rooftop is doing parkour; if she pauses to add a backflip off the edge, she has crossed into free running.

parkour ↗free runningtricking ↗buildering

Common collocations

Nouns

  • parkour gym
  • parkour run
  • parkour training
  • parkour park
  • parkour athlete

Adverbs

Phrases

  • do parkour
  • practise parkour
  • get into parkour
  • train in parkour

Prepositions

  • over a wall
  • across rooftops
  • through the city
  • around the obstacles

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

From the French word parkour, coined in the late 1980s by David Belle and his friends in the Paris suburbs. Belle adapted it from parcours, meaning 'route' or 'course', which itself comes from the military training term parcours du combattant ('obstacle course'). The change of c to k was deliberate, marking it as a new discipline rather than a generic course. The English-speaking world picked up the word in the early 2000s after parkour appeared in films and television.