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Kanji Detail for 侍 - "to serve, samurai"

侍

  • Meaning

    侍 means "to serve, samurai." Also associated with to be.

    1. To serve - To attend on people of high status; also, such a person.

    2. Samurai - A warrior.

    3. To be - The polite form of "to be" or "to exist."

  • Words using 侍

    • 侍従 じじゅう Listen chamberlain

  • Origin of 侍

    The person radical 亻 beside 寺, originally a court or government office, lending the reading ji: one who attends at court. The Japanese reading samurai comes from saburau, "to serve at a lord's side".

    How to remember it: The person 亻 standing at the court 寺 — in attendance, in service: the samurai.

    Sources: en.wiktionary.org · mojinavi.com

  • Tattoo check: 侍

    • Verified meaning: to serve, samurai
    • Official Jōyō kanji — a standard character every Japanese reader recognises
    • Used in real Japanese given names (read つこう, ひと)
    • Also carries these associations: to be

    A single kanji rarely maps one-to-one onto an English word. Read the meanings and associations above as a set — a character that fits the dictionary definition can still carry a connotation you did not intend.

  • Name readings of 侍

    Given names 侍(つこう)Listen 侍(ひと)Listen

  • Compare with other kanji that mean the same thing:

  • Dictionary Citations

    The meaning above is based on the following sources:

    KANJIDIC2 A comprehensive Japanese-English kanji dictionary

    waiter; samurai; wait upon; serve

    Unihan Unicode Han Database for CJK characters

    serve, attend upon; attendant, servant; samurai

    CC-CEDICT A Chinese-English dictionary

    to serve; to attend upon

    Make Me a Hanzi Open-source Chinese character data

    to serve, to attend upon; servant, attendant; samurai

    XSZD Xuéshēng Zìdiǎn (學生字典) - Student's Dictionary

    Whenever juniors accompany seniors, it's called 侍. Such as 侍坐 (attend while seated). | An attendant. Such as 女侍 (female attendant), 內侍 (palace attendant). | A humble term. Seniors addressing juniors humbly call themselves 侍生. Also abbreviated as 侍.

  • Onyomi

    tip

    ji(ジ) ジ

    shi(シ) シ

  • Kunyomi

    tip

    haberu(はべ-る) はべ-る

    samurai(さむらい) さむらい

  • Strokes

    tip

    8 strokes

  • Radical

    tip

    人 亻 (hito・nimben・hitogashira・hitoyane)

  • Related Keywords

    to serve samurai to be warrior attend battle honor loyalty sword feudal discipline courage service protection respect

Sentences including 侍

  • I live by the way of the samurai.

  • A samurai's blood runs in Taro's veins.

  • Nowadays there are no ninjas or samurais in Japan.

  • "The Nightingale Samurai" is a samurai tale full of humanity and humour.

  • Kamui no Ken was a sort of samurai/ninja story set during the transition of the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the re-establishment of Japan under the Emperor Meiji in 1868.

Sentences from Japanese classical masterpieces

More kanji with the radical 人 亻 (hito・nimben・hitogashira・hitoyane)

See all kanji with this radical →

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