Editing Samurai (section)

==Terminology==
The proper term for Japanese warriors is {{nihongo|'''''bushi'''''|武士||extra={{IPA|ja|bɯ.ɕi||}}}}, meaning 'warrior',<ref name="History of the Samurai">{{cite book |last1=Lopez-Vera |first1=Jonathan |title=History of the Samurai |date=2020 |publisher=Tuttle |isbn=9781462921348 }}</ref> but also could be interchangeable with {{nihongo|'''''buke'''''|武家}}, meaning 'military family', and later could refer to the whole class of professional warriors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Louis-Frédéric |title=Japan encyclopedia |date=2002 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674017535 }}</ref> Especially in the west, samurai is used synonymous with bushi, but they can have different meanings depending on context.<ref>{{cite book |title=World History Encyclopedia Band 2 |date=2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=9781851099306}}</ref>

Samurai originally referred to domestic servants and did not have military connotations. As the term gained military connotations in the 12th century, it referred to landless foot soldiers.<ref name="Weapons of the Samurai">{{cite book |last1=Turnbull |first1=Stephen |title=Weapons of the Samurai |date=2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781472844026 |ref=Weapons of the Samurai}}</ref> The samurai were subservient to gokenin who held land from which they took their name.<ref name="The Lost Samurai">{{cite book |last1=Turnbull |first1=Stephan |title=The Lost Samurai |date=2021 |publisher=Pen & Sword Books |isbn=9781526758996 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JP0hEAAAQBAJ}}</ref> According to Michael Wert, "a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai'".<ref>{{Citation |last=Wert |first=Michael |title=Becoming those who served |date=2021-04-01 |work=Samurai: A Very Short Introduction |pages=4–11 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/32797/chapter/274542399 |access-date=2024-07-05 |edition=1 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780190685072.003.0002 |isbn=978-0-19-068507-2}}</ref> According to Morillo, the term marked social function, and not military function.<ref name=":22">Morillo, Stephen. “[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281209156 Milites, Knights and Samurai: Military Terminology, Comparative History, and the Problem of Translation].” In ''The Normans and Their Adversaries at War'', ed. Richard Abels and Bernard Bachrach, 167–84. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001. "Finally there is the term samurai. This noun derives from the verb saburau, to serve, and it is again a social marker, though it marks social function and not class, It means a retainer of a lord - usually, in the sixteenth century, the retainer of a daimyo, a leader of one of the essentially independent states of the Sengoku, or warring states period. It has no functional component - all sorts of soldiers, including pikemen, bowmen, musketeers and horsemen were samurai"</ref> In the Tokugawa period, the terms were roughly interchangeable, as the military class was legally limited to the retainers of the shogun or daimyo. However, strictly speaking samurai referred to higher ranking retainers, although the cut off between samurai and other military retainers varied from domain to domain.<ref name="Vaporis">{{cite book |last=Vaporis |first=Constantine Nomikos |title=Samurai. An Encyclopedia of Japan's Cultured Warriors |date=2019 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-4270-2 |publication-place=Santa Barbara, California |page=114}}</ref> Also usage varied by class, with commoners referring to all sword carrying men as samurai, regardless of rank.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tokitsu |first1=Kenji |title=Introduction to the Complete Book of Five Rings |date=2010 |publisher=Shambhala |isbn=9780834821996 }}</ref>