Meaning of ronin | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Alternative spelling of ronin.
   alt-of, alternative
2. A male given name originating as a coinage.
3. A masterless samurai (who often becomes a mercenary to make ends meet).
4. A student who has failed the entrance examination for the high school or university of their choice: if the student does not wish to take the exam the following year or is unable to, the student becomes a ronin, assuming full responsibility for their own training and survival.
   colloquial

Equivalents

Examples

“Back at Asano’s home in Ako, his chancellor, Oishi (Tatsuo Ichikawa), rallies the samurai, now known as ronin because they are without a master, in a campaign to avenge Asano and restore his clan’s honor.”

“He shook Chaz's hand. “Please call me Ronin.” Ronin. The sexy, mysterious name fit him perfectly.”

“Boiling over with patriotism, bands of assassins, mostly rōnins, roamed the country, ready to slay foreigners, or the regent, and to die for the mikado.”

“After many secret consultations, it was determined among the rōnins that they should separate and dissemble.”

“The rōnin phenomenon of this era has been likened to a movement for social equality in a suppressive society. Many rōnin had been motivated more by a desire to wear the two swords and look like samurai than by lofty political aspirations. They fulfilled this desire by becoming rōnin under the false pretext of “loyalty.””

“The shōgun, aware of what they had done—and why–and also aware of the rōnins’ growing fame, allowed them to die through seppuku and be buried next to their lord.”

“Greey wrote and translated a number of plays and books, among them A Captive of Love (1886), a retelling of one of the dramatic and popular yomi hon (books for reading) by Takizawa Bakin, and Tamenaga Shunsui’s The Loyal Ronins: A Historical Romance (1884), the classic story of the forty-seven rōnins, which he translated with Shiuichiro Saito.”

CEFR level