samurai
Americannoun
plural
samurai-
a member of the hereditary warrior class in feudal Japan.
-
a retainer of a daimyo.
noun
-
the Japanese warrior caste that provided the administrative and fighting aristocracy from the 11th to the 19th centuries
-
a member of this aristocracy
Etymology
Origin of samurai
1720–30; < Japanese, earlier samurafi to serve, equivalent to sa- prefix + morafi watchfully wait (frequentative of mor- to guard)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“I equate the cowboy with what the medieval knight is to Europe, what the samurai is to Japan,” Singleton said.
From Los Angeles Times
"That's, I think, the biggest impact we've seen within Japan," Markan said, while international shows like "Shogun" have helped "introduce a new generation of people to samurai culture and Japanese swords".
From Barron's
In a 1991 interview, Kurosawa recalled the origins of “Seven Samurai” as a story about the workaday existence of a single samurai.
So while Tartakovsky’s samurai is a man who only says as much as he must, Spear doesn’t verbalize his thoughts at all.
From Salon
The second is a story of brothers – one a samurai, the other a shinobi – pitted against each other by an arrogant, cruel father.
From Salon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
