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jmdict 1626420 Active (id: 2279937)
刃渡り [news1,nf22] ； 刃渡 [sK]
【 はわたり [news1,nf22] 】
1. [n]
▶ length of a blade
Cross references:
  ⇐ see: 2860574 刃長【はちょう】 1. length of a blade
2. [n]
▶ walking barefoot on the edge of a sword blade (acrobatic stunt)



History:
10. A 2023-10-12 23:59:00  Jim Breen <...address hidden...>
  Comments: 
Although it's recorded at the sense level, the [rare] tag applies to the term itself, and is usually intended to signal a lesser used alternative.. Perhaps we need a standard way of noting uncommon senses.
  Diff: 
@@ -24 +23,0 @@
-<misc>&rare;</misc>
9. A* 2023-10-12 08:08:34  Brian Krznarich <...address hidden...>
  Comments: 
I take your point on [2] not being rare in the context of "walking barefoot on the edge of a sword blade". 

The issue is that stats attach to the entire term, and [1], surprisingly, appears as "common" (due, it seems,  to news stats on crime reporting). This inadvertently gives the impression that maybe sword-walking is a commonly-recognized cultural activity in Japan.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  [2] is an arcane religious ceremonial activity(or an extremely arcane form of entertainment).  Yes, it is sometimes enacted, yes, this is the word for the activity. No, it is not something an average Japanese person would have any familiarity with. (vs., say, 綱渡り tightrope walking, or maybe even fire walking). 

To answer your question directly, "is there a better word", no, there isn't.  But that doesn't make this a good word.  The couple of Japanese news sources that mentioned this included a definition, presumably because the specific details of "刃渡り" are not comprehensible on their own(unlike 綱渡り, which brought me back here). So, if an E->J translator wanted to describe "sword walking" to a Japanese audience, they shouldn't expect to have success using this term to do it(without supplementary information).  Perhaps that does justify [rare].

My actual motivation was that a learner can safely discard [2] as "not worth learning"(due to cultural rarity, not just low ngrams).  It was also as to counter the stats on [1].  Lots of online Japanese learning resources just scoop up "common" terms from jmdict and present them as-is.  In this specific context, I think [rare] is the lesser of two evils, but I understand if this is rejected.
  Diff: 
@@ -23,0 +24 @@
+<misc>&rare;</misc>
8. A 2023-04-06 01:08:28  Jim Breen <...address hidden...>
7. A* 2023-04-05 23:00:10  Robin Scott <...address hidden...>
  Comments: 
I don't think "(sword, knife, etc.)" is needed on sense 1.
I can't see why [rare] has been added to sense 2. Is there a more common name for this stunt?
  Diff: 
@@ -20 +20 @@
-<gloss>length of a blade (sword, knife, etc.)</gloss>
+<gloss>length of a blade</gloss>
@@ -24 +23,0 @@
-<misc>&rare;</misc>
6. A 2023-04-04 09:09:29  Jim Breen <...address hidden...>
  Refs: 
刃渡り	38120	91.3%
刃渡	2061	4.9%
はわたり	1561	3.7%
  Diff: 
@@ -11 +11 @@
-<ke_inf>&io;</ke_inf>
+<ke_inf>&sK;</ke_inf>
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