"Acupuncture" is a translated English word from the Chinese and the Japanese term "鍼灸" -"Jing jiu" (Chinese) and "Shin Kyu"(Japanese). It is important to pay attention the fact that the Chinese character term "鍼灸" consists of two words:"鍼" and "灸", which mean "Needle" and "Moxa" respectively. Moxa is name of a herb used in the treatment technique called "moxibustion", which is a heat therapy using Moxa. On the other hand, the term "acupuncture" consists of "acu" and "puncture". You can see some differences in the true meanings between the original term of acupuncture "鍼灸" and the English word "acupuncture". These differences raise two important points regarding acupuncture.

First, it is worth pointing out that the English term "acupuncture" gives you an impression of focusing on a point on your skin and puncturing it. It is probably safe to imagine many English-speaking people assume they always get punctured their skin with needles when receiving acupuncture treatments. However, the original term of acupuncture "鍼灸" does not include a meaning of puncturing the skin. In fact, the Chinese medicine in the classical era and the traditional Japanese acupuncture such as the Japanese Meridian Therapy Acupuncture use the various treatment tools ("Needles") which have dull tips and needling techniques without insertion of needles.

Furthermore, the original term of acupuncture "鍼灸 does include a Chinese character "灸" meaning Moxa. Therefore, according to the original term of acupuncture, moxibustion is an essential part of the treatment technique. It is a sort of "ball" when it comes to "baseball", which means acupuncture can not go without moxibustion.

As the term "acupuncture" becoming well known more and more, it results in widespread misunderstanding of what acupuncture really is, without many people's knowing it.