"samurai / Samurai (侍?), usually referred to in Japanese as bushi (武士?, [bu͍ꜜ.ɕi̥]) or buke (武家?), were the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: ""In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany persons in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau."
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