samurai

American  

[sam-oo-rahy] / ˈsæm ʊˌraɪ /

noun

Japanese History.

plural

samurai

1. a member of the hereditary warrior class in feudal Japan.

2. a retainer of a daimyo.

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samurai British  

/ ˈsæmʊˌraɪ, ˈsæmjʊ- /

noun

1. the Japanese warrior caste that provided the administrative and fighting aristocracy from the 11th to the 19th centuries

2. a member of this aristocracy

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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

The men dressed up incongruously as samurai warriors, and Riley arranged for the sumo world champion to be there, all 350 pounds of him.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 25, 2026

"One day he stumbles upon a samurai sensei who teaches him...about real discipline and how he can not only protect himself, but protect other people too."

From BBC • Mar. 13, 2026

A refined 1840 Hokusai portrait of a young samurai, painted for a male patron, bears a poem praising the boy’s loveliness with a metaphor about dew-soaked branches.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 7, 2026

The last section covers the modern fantasies about samurai that developed at home and abroad after the bushi class’s abolishment, a result of Japan’s transition from shogunate rule to a Western-style constitutional monarchy.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 7, 2026

If my mom wasn’t a chef, she could have been a samurai.

From "The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora" by Pablo Cartaya