A samurai was a term for the military nobility of pre-industrial japan it means to serve therefore a samurai is a servant he is the servant of a lord samurais were the only people allowed to carry swords samurais have been the objects of much admiration an idealization since the early 20th
Century they have been seen as having unfailing loyalty to their overlords and an indifference to pain or death but in fact they rarely lived up to their romanticized image