When it's written in kanji, the literal translation of shinai is 'bamboo sword' (竹刀) however in Japanese, there's a word 'shina-u' (撓う) which means supple/bendy and that's where the word shinai seems to originate.
It's quite interesting to discover that in fact its writing 'bamboo sword' has nothing to do with its pronunciation 'shinai' which indicates its suppleness.
Somehow I assumed it's one of those exceptions (there are so many in Japanese) to read the 'bamboo' (竹) bit as 'shi', then the sword (刀) as 'nai' but it's turned out be completely false.
I guess a similar word play structure in English also exists, i.e. pigeon = flying rat ...but perhaps you'd never actually pronounce a written word 'pigeon' as 'flying rat' whereas that's what happening in the case of shinai.
Write 'bamboo sword', pronounced 'supple'.
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