shoguns

Cultural  

1. 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.

---

Example Sentences

One of the strongest of these demands was that the Ashikaga shoguns prevent Japanese pirates from preying on China and its vassal state of Korea, which the Japanese rulers were unable to do.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

The mines supplied precious metals to the shoguns who ruled Japan during the two and a half centuries when the country was all but cut off from the rest of the world.

From New York Times • Feb. 21, 2022

It was worn by the Tokugawa shoguns and declared a national treasure of Japan in 1939.

From The Guardian • May 18, 2018

For her, World War II must seem as remote as the time of the shoguns.

From National Geographic • Aug. 7, 2015

The great war drum of Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns, lies upon a richly decorated stand.

From The Critic in the Orient by Fitch, George Hamlin