samurain.
/ˈsamʊrʌɪ/ a. In Japan during the continuance of the feudal system, one of the class of military retainers of the daimios; sometimes in wider sense, a member of the military caste, whether a samurai proper or a daimio. Also applied to any Japanese army officer. Also attributive.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > warrior > [noun] > member of warrior caste or race
myrmidonc1425
Mameluke1511
Nair1582
Rajput1598
Khatri1630
samurai1727
Singh1851
society > society and the community > social class > nobility > [noun] > noble person or man > of other foreign countries > member of noble or military caste
Nair1582
Rajput1598
Khatri1630
Kshatriyaa1792
Singh1851
samurai1874
1727 J. G. Scheuchzer tr. E. Kæmpfer Hist. Japan II. i. 396 'Tis from thence they are call'd Samurai, which signifies persons who wear two swords.
1795 C. R. Hopson tr. C. P. Thunberg Trav. (ed. 2) III. 123 The people in office at this place, who wore two sabres, were called Samrai.
1841 Chinese Repository 10 17 Class 4 is that of the samorai, or military, and consists of the vassals of the nobility.
1874 M. E. Herbert tr. J. A. von Hübner Ramble round World (1878) ii. i. 222 He has..his vassals, his Samurais, or knights with two swords (the others having only one).
1885 E. Greey Bakin's Captive of Love (1904) ii. 14 Amada, who had been a samurai, taught the lad to read and write.
1885 E. Greey Bakin's Captive of Love (1904) iv. 30 For a samurai woman, even when mortally wounded, always endeavours to conceal her pain.
1896 L. Hearn Kokoro x. 172 The fear of the dead was held not less contemptible in a samurai than the fear of man.
1898 Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan Dec. 149 The knowledge of Bushidō, or ‘Way of Samurai’, is absolutely necessary for any one desirous of knowing something about the Japanese people.
1904 Daily Chron. 30 Mar. 4/5 Of those not Samurai, the heimin, or commoners, the peasantry ranked first.
1906 D. Sladen When we were Lovers in Japan vi Mr. Jevons told us that we ought to have Samurai servants.
1972 Mainichi Daily News (Japan) 6 Nov. 7/7 The Samurai were distinguished in dress most easily by the swords they wore.
b. transferred and figurative.
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1905 H. G. Wells Mod. Utopia ix. 259 These people constitute an order, the samurai, the ‘voluntary nobility’, which is essential in the scheme of the Utopian State.
1918 G. Frankau One of Them xx. 151 Stern mitred prelates; Law-lords; back-woods Samurais Who flung to consequence a scornful ‘Damn your eyes’.
1934 H. G. Wells Exper. in Autobiogr. II. ix. 735 I have told already..how I tried to make the Fabian Society into an order of the Samurai.
1977 Time 24 Jan. 17/2 Yukio Mishima, the right-wing literary samurai who committed spectacular hara-kiri in 1970.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
samurai code n.
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1971 Times Lit. Suppl. 20 Aug. 984/1 The samurai code embraced more than the practice of Zen and the ethics of Japanese forms of Confucianism.
samurai ethic n.
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1970 Newsweek 7 Dec. 32/2 The Japanese militarists of the 1930s twisted the ancient samurai ethic into the ideology of Fascism.
samurai order n.
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1906 G. B. Shaw Let. 24 Mar. (1972) II. 614 A proposal for a set of observances of the Samurai order.
samurai spirit n.
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1923 19th Cent. Jan. 133 The old samurai spirit of bushido will prove equal to stemming the tide of radicalism.
samurai sword n.
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1961 I. Murdoch Severed Head xix. 155 Was it..when I saw her cut the napkins in two with the Samurai sword?
samurai warrior n.
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1977 National Observer (U.S.) 15 Jan. 5 Hayakawa..went on to even more fame as the ‘samurai warrior’ president of San Francisco State University.
C2.
samurai-minded adj.
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1938 Times 17 Feb. 16/1 In private conversation business men will unequivocally express disapproval of the course of events, a minority of samurai-minded ultra-patriots being the only exceptions.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1909; most recently modified version published online March 2019).
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