shoguns

[ (shoh-guhnz) ]


Japanese military leaders who ruled the country from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. There was still an emperor in Japan under the shoguns, but he was reduced to a mere figurehead.

Words Nearby shoguns

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

How to use shoguns in a sentence

  • Near at hand are the temples and tombs of the six shoguns of the Tokugawa family, buried in Uyeno Park.

    The Critic in the Orient | George Hamlin Fitch
  • Here, also, are eight tablets erected to the memory of eight mothers of shoguns, all of whom were concubines.

    The Critic in the Orient | George Hamlin Fitch
  • The great war drum of Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns, lies upon a richly decorated stand.

    The Critic in the Orient | George Hamlin Fitch
  • This feudal lord became a dictator, and had the military power in his hands, like the shoguns in nineteenth-century Japan.

  • Eventually all the military power fell into the hands of the shoguns, and the mikado was seen no more at the head of his army.