Tokugawa

[taw-koo-gah-wah]

noun

1. a member of a powerful family in Japan that ruled as shoguns, 1603–1867.

2. a period of Japanese history under the rule of Tokugawa shoguns, characterized by a samurai ruling class, urbanization, and the growth of a merchant class.

Example Sentences

In a previous interview with The Times, Sanada discussed his admiration for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the real-life shōgun on whom Toranaga is based.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

He became a prolific presence in Japanese film and television, eventually even playing Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man on whom his “Shōgun” character is based, in the 1992 TV production “Oda Nobunaga.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

It took 100 years of battles to create a cohesive central government known as the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

They had been fighting on the losing side, says Hori said, but the victorious Tokugawa clan decided to incorporate all the losing factions into its new bureaucracy, to become tax collectors and shōya, or village leaders.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

During the Tokugawa period, which spanned the 17th to mid-19th centuries, samurai men regularly engaged in same-sex partnerships, said Gary Leupp, author of “Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan.”

Read more on New York Times