Sumo is the traditional Japanese sport of wrestling, in which two very large men in a small ring try to push each other out, or to make any part of the other man's body except his feet touch the ground. A bout is often over in seconds. The wrestlers wear only a thick belt called a mawashi, and they are heavy on purpose — weight is an advantage when nobody can be pushed out. In English the word is used three ways: for the sport ('he watches sumo'), before another noun ('a sumo wrestler', 'a sumo ring', 'a sumo tournament'), and loosely for a wrestler himself ('he's built like a sumo'), though careful speakers say 'sumo wrestler' for the person. Two things worth knowing. First, sumo is not just a sport in Japan — it is tied to Shinto religion, which is why you see salt thrown to purify the ring and why the referee dresses like a priest. Second, English speakers often use 'sumo' as a joke about size ('he eats like a sumo wrestler'), which can sound rude to people who take the sport seriously — these are trained professional athletes, not simply fat men. The word came into English from Japanese 相撲 (sumō) in the 1800s; the long 'o' of the Japanese is usually written without any mark in English.