真剣 shinken Real Sword

The デジタル大辞泉 gives both senses: a real sword, said as against a wooden or bamboo practice sword; and meeting a thing seriously, in earnest. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives the same two, and a third: true, no lie. JMdict, the open Japanese–English dictionary, gives serious; earnest before real sword (as opposed to a wooden practice weapon).

Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 reads the two characters as makoto no tsurugi, the true sword. With 勝負, a bout, they make 真剣勝負 (shinken shōbu): a bout fought with real swords, and contending in earnest. In its earnest sense, 真剣 is a manner of meeting a thing. The serious of a serious flaw, grave in itself, JMdict gives to another word, 深刻.

In Ihara Saikaku's 武道伝来記, printed in 1687, one man says a blow of the bamboo practice sword leaves no wound and so proves nothing. The other answers with a question: do you suppose that with a real sword I could not do it?

In a book of 1703, 好色敗毒散, the word is said of a money-changer's trade in gold, the 真剣 trade, where genuine reads as well as in earnest. Ejima Kiseki repeats the sentence nearly word for word in a book of 1715.

In a sharebon of 1794, a book of pleasure-quarter talk, a guest is told that's a lie and answers with the one word しんけん: for real! Earlier in the same book a line is said しんけんで, in earnest. Both are in kana, both are about speech, and neither has a sword in it.

Writers drew the real sword as a figure for being in earnest. In a novel of 1735, a card game on a riverboat turns to high stakes, as a bout with wooden swords becomes one with real blades. In Natsume Sōseki's 虞美人草, a novel of 1907, a character says being serious, you see, means a 眞劒勝負, a fight with real swords.

In English, Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 gives the blade alone: Real sword, (not a wooden one). Brinkley's of 1896 adds a sense it marks colloquial: Real, not ideal; practical. Inouye's of 1909 carries the earnest sense in an example: If in real earnest, I should not be beaten by you. In 1913 E. J. Harrison wrote, of a contest between a boxer and a judo man that never came off, of what the Japanese call a shinken (real fight).

Whether you take it as the live blade or as being in earnest is yours.

No source read here names a maker for 真剣: Chinese histories already set a real sword, 真劍, against an imitation one, glossed as wooden; the earliest Japanese example in the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 is of 1687, in a story of Ihara Saikaku set against the practice sword; and among the witnesses read here its earnest sense is plainest first in speech.

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