Meaning & use
samurai
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Meanings
nouncountable
A professional warrior of feudal Japan who served a lord and lived by a code of loyalty and honor.
Grammar: The plural is the same as the singular: one samurai, three samurai (samurais is also seen).
Patterns
- a samurai warrior
- samurai and shogun
The samurai bowed before entering the training hall.
Many samurai served powerful regional lords.
He studied the history of the samurai in college.
nounplural
The warrior class of feudal Japan as a whole.
Grammar: Used as a group name with a plural verb: the samurai were respected.
Patterns
- the samurai class
The samurai held great power until the nineteenth century.
Under the new government, the samurai lost their privileges.
Honor was central to the culture of the samurai.
Word forms
| plural | samurai |
|---|
Common combinations
- samurai sword
- The museum displays a samurai sword over four hundred years old.
- samurai warrior
- The film follows a lone samurai warrior.
- samurai armor
- Samurai armor was made of laced plates.
- samurai code
- The samurai code valued loyalty and courage.
- samurai film
- Samurai films became popular worldwide.
Synonyms and how they differ
- warrior
- Warrior is general for any fighter, whereas samurai specifically means the Japanese warrior class.
- knight
- Knight describes a European mounted warrior of the Middle Ages, and is often compared to the samurai but is a different tradition.
- ronin
- A ronin is a samurai without a lord, which is narrower than samurai itself.
Word family
Commonly confused: samurai or ninja?
samurai vs ninja
Ninja were covert agents who spied and carried out secret attacks, whereas samurai were open warriors of the ruling class.
Practice
What does 'samurai' refer to?
Choose one answer.
Samurai were warriors of feudal Japan. A poem form is the haiku, and the other options do not name this class.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “samurai”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.