Meanings
- uncommonuncountableThe state or characteristic of being a samurai.
Which is absent from Mishima's samurainess. The purity in his work does go hand in hand with selflessness, but this as oblivion of the ego rather than self-effacement.
1996, P. Abelsen, “Irony and Purity: Mishima: I. A Puzzling Event at Ichigaya Garrison 1”, in Modern Asian Studies3 more examples
the present worker-company bond is therefore to be seen as a contrived rather than a cultural or hereditary "samurainess." There is also much in the political domain to remind one of the samurai era.
1993, Winston L. King, Zen and the Way of the Sword: Arming the Samurai Psyche, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 227Freed of the feudal baggage of the samurai caste system, the outlaw ronin fumbles towards a samurainess (if so grotesque a neologism can be borne) not restricted to or built on any […]
2000, E. von Mueller, “Naked Swords: The Zen Warrior Tradition and the Intertextual Odyssey of the Nameless Ronin in" Seven Samurai," Yojimbo," and" Sanjuro"”, in Post ScriptFrom a Japanese point of view, the notion of a black Samurai [...] calls into question the meaning of Japaneseness [...]. From an African American perspective, the "samurainess" of Afro may provide him with the irresistible odds needed to fight the world. From a different, perhaps global, perspective, the fusion of a samurai and an African American in a transcultural production[…]
2020 October 26, Michael Daliot-Bul, Nissim Otmazgin, The Anime Boom in the United States: Lessons for Global Creative Industries, BRILL, →ISBN, page 134
Origin
Cite this entry
samurainess. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/samurainess
“samurainess.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/samurainess. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “samurainess,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/samurainess.
Source: samurainess on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.