Over time, however, the curved single-edged sword became so dominant a style in Japan that tou and ken came to be used interchangeably to refer to swords in Japan and by others to refer to Japanese swords. For example, the Japanese typically refer to Japanese swords as 日本刀 nihontō ("Japanese tou" i.e. "Japanese (single-edged) blade"), while the character ken 剣 is used in such terms as kendo and kenjutsu.