戦士魂 senshi-damashii Warrior Spirit
戦士魂 (senshi-damashii), warrior spirit: the Japanese a translator gives to English warrior spirit, said most often of warriors not Japanese, a compound first found in books of 1940.
Abstract
戦士魂 (senshi-damashii), warrior spirit, is a headword in none of the dictionaries read here, and its three characters have two histories: in Chinese verse they fall across a word boundary, 戰士 the fighters and 魂 souls, and a Japanese reading of a Chinese novel printed in 1924 gives them as two words, せんし and こん. As a Japanese compound, built like 大和魂 (yamato-damashii) and 武士魂 (bushi-damashii), it is first found in the National Diet Library's full-text index in books of 1940: in the vocabulary of wartime labor, as 產業戰士魂, the spirit of the industrial warrior, which a book of 1943 sets beside the spirit of labor and the spirit of the farmer, and in a translation of Mussolini. After the war the index finds it most often said of warriors not Japanese, the Celts and the Maori among them, in books translated or written about them; and in the Japanese of Hanson Baldwin (1955) and of Eiko Ikegami, in her historical sociology of the samurai, it renders English warrior spirit said of the Japanese and the samurai themselves. No witness read gives the compound a reading; senshi-damashii is the one its pattern gives.
Overview
The sense. 戦士魂 has no entry at kotobank, none in JMdict, the open Japanese–English dictionary, and no headword in the dictionaries Weblio searches [1][2][3]. The dictionaries hold its parts. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 戦士 two senses: 《１ 戦場で戦う兵士。つわもの。「無名戦士」 ２ 第一線で活躍する人。主義や信念のために活躍する人。「プロレタリアの戦士」「企業戦士」》, 1. a soldier who fights on the battlefield; a fighting man. "The unknown soldier." 2. a person active on the front line; a person active for a principle or a belief. "A fighter for the proletariat", "a corporate warrior" [4]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 finds the first sense in the 平治物語 (about 1220, it suggests) and the second in Shimazaki Tōson's 破戒 of 1906 [4]. JMdict gives 戦士 soldier; combatant; warrior [2]. Under 魂, the デジタル大辞泉 gives as sense 4 《（多く「…だましい」の形で）そのもののもつ固有の精神。また、気構え。「大和やまと―」「負けじ―」》, (mostly in the form …damashii) the spirit proper to a thing; also, its readiness of mind. "Yamato-damashii", "makeji-damashii" [5]. The English warrior is a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier, and a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness … [6]. The two words cover nearly the same ground: a fighter of any side, and a person who fights for something. Neither names a class or a country.
The words. 戦士 (senshi), a fighter or soldier, with 魂, soul, spirit, read -damashii when it closes a compound, as in 大和魂 and 負けじ魂 [5]. Where 武士 names the samurai, 《さむらい》, a class 《昔、武芸をおさめ、軍事にたずさわった身分の者》, of old, those of the rank that trained in arms and served in war, 戦士 names whoever fights [4][7].
The text in English. In the Internet Archive's full-text index the romanized senshidamashii is found once, in a self-published book of 2017; senshi damashii, spaced or hyphenated, not at all [8]. In that index the word has no history in English. The design is sold as Warrior Spirit.
The historical record
The Chinese line: the fighters' souls. The National Diet Library's full-text index, searched for the string on 28 October 2026, returns 122 items, and its oldest are Chinese verse and prose, where 戰士 and 魂 are two words: the souls of the fighters [9]. The 水滸傳 has the line in a battle verse on the woman warrior 扈三娘, and the Japanese reading of the novel in the series 国訳漢文大成, printed in 1924, gives it as 《殺氣胸腋に騰り、戰士魂を消し、敵人膽を喪ふ》, the air of slaughter rises in her breast, melts the fighters' souls, and the enemy loses heart, with the ruby せんし beside 戰士 and こん beside 魂: two Chinese words read in their Chinese sounds [10]. The same reading is reprinted in the series in 1934, 1940, 1955 and 2000, and in 幸田露伴's collected works of 1955 and 1979; the snippets of the 1934, 1940 and 1955 printings show parts of the ruby, and that of the 1955 collected works the whole of it [9]. A book of 1968 on Chinese poems of war, reading another such line, adds the particle: 《野色徒に銷す戦士の魂》, the wild landscape vainly wastes the soldiers' souls [11]. In none of these is 戰士魂 one word. CBETA's search of the Buddhist canon returns nothing for the string, against 158 results for 戰士 [12].
1940–1944: the industrial warrior. The first items in the index in which the string is a Japanese compound are of 1940. Two belong to the war's vocabulary of labor, in which a worker was an 產業戰士, an industrial warrior: a history of 1940 has 《銃後產業戰士魂》, the spirit of the industrial warrior on the home front, and a book of the same year from 兵庫県's education office, of reflections on an imperial review, has 《姫工精神、工業戰士魂》, the spirit of 姫工, the industrial warrior's spirit, of pupils who march under a school flag; both are known here from the index's snippets [13][14]. The third is a translation (below) [15]. A book of 1943, 『産業戦士決戦の書』, the industrial warrior's book of the decisive battle, says in its preface, dated January 1943: 《こゝに絶叫されてゐる産業戰士魂こそは、平和時にあつては英の紡績業、造船業を壓倒したあの魂であり、凝つては今大陸の戰野に、南の海に、はた大東亞の大空に、奔驅し、天翔ける兵器そのものに發露せる闘魂に外ならないのである。》, the industrial warrior's spirit cried out here is that very spirit which in peacetime overwhelmed England's spinning and shipbuilding; and concentrated, it is nothing other than the fighting spirit shown in the weapons themselves that race and fly now over the battlefields of the continent, the southern seas and the skies of Greater East Asia; the page carries no ruby [16]. A book of the same year sets the word in its series: 《「勤勞魂」が唱へられ、「產業戰士魂」「農民魂」等々が絕叫されてゐる》, "the spirit of labor" is proclaimed, and "the industrial warrior's spirit", "the farmer's spirit" and the like are cried out [17]. Of the 52 uses of the string that the National Diet Library's n-gram viewer counts in its books, Chinese verse included, 32 fall in the six years from 1940 to 1945 [18].
From 1940: the word of translation. The Japanese of Mussolini's autobiography, 1940, has 《再びその戰士魂に》, again to that warrior spirit, beside words on a return to the movement's historical source in a pure, uncompromising state [15]. In 1943, the Japanese of a German book on the airman Lothar von Richthofen, titled in Japanese for his fighter squadron, lists 《勇敢、戰士魂、戰友愛、信義》, courage, warrior spirit, comradeship, good faith [19]. After the war the use the index returns most often is the warrior spirit of a people or an age not Japanese, in books translated or written about them, a book on the crusades, the Celts, the Maori and the Klingons of Star Trek among them [9][20][21][22]. Dave Grossman's On Killing, in Japanese in 1998, cites Richard Heckler as 《リチャード・ヘクラー「戦士魂とはなにか」》, a title that matches Richard Strozzi-Heckler's In Search of the Warrior Spirit, in print by 1990 and with no Japanese edition in the National Diet Library's catalogue: read so, the translator made 戦士魂 the Japanese of warrior spirit [23][24].
The Japanese and the samurai, in translation. Two post-war uses that give 戦士魂 to the Japanese themselves render the same English phrase, warrior spirit. A history of Japan's submarines, of 1979, quotes the end of Hanson Baldwin's chapter on the loss of Submarine No. 6 in 1910 and its captain, Lieutenant 佐久間 (Sakuma): 《星霜移り日本は西洋思想によって近代化され、また戦敗れて米軍の占領行政に感化を受けたけれども、しかも佐久間が示した武士道はなお活きて、日本人の副意識の中にその戦士魂を残すであろう》, the years have passed; Japan has been modernized by Western thought, and, defeated in war, influenced by the American forces' occupation administration; and yet the bushidō Sakuma showed lives on, and will leave its warrior spirit in the subconscious of the Japanese [25]; a book of 1986 names the source, Baldwin's post-war book 「海戦と海難」, Sea Fights and Shipwrecks [26]. Baldwin's English, of 1955, ends: much of this same frightening devotion to the past, this same rigid acceptance of discipline, the same cult of the warrior spirit dominates the Japanese subconscious today [27]. And the Japanese translation of Eiko Ikegami's The Taming of the Samurai, of 2000, has 《サムライの戦士魂が明らかに消え去りつつある時》, a time when the samurai's warrior spirit was clearly fading, for her the samurai's warrior spirit was clearly fading [28][29]; a second passage of the translation has a figure think that the samurai of an earlier day 《真の戦士魂によって生き》, lived by the true warrior spirit [28].
In Japanese writers' own words. Japanese writers use it too, of fighters in Japan's own past. A history of ancient Akita, of 1981, says of a course argued for in a castle short of food, where staying together would only hasten starving together, 《徹底した戦士魂ともいえるし無慈悲ともいえる》, it can be called a thorough warrior spirit, and it can be called merciless, and a book of 1999 on the 浄瑠璃坂 raid (討入り), in a passage on the battle of Nagashino, says 《これもまた壮絶な戦士魂である》, this too is a fierce warrior spirit [30][31]. A book of 1994 on a children's barcode-battle game, and a children's magazine of the same month, have 《悪の戦士魂を見せるんじゃぞ》, show your evil warrior spirit [9].
The reading. No witness read gives the compound a reading. The kana forms せんしだましい and せんしだましひ return nothing in the National Diet Library's full-text index, and the only ruby on the string seen in the pages and snippets read, from 1924 on, is the two Chinese words of the 水滸傳 line [9][10][32]. Senshi-damashii is the reading the pattern gives, as 大和魂 is yamato-damashii [5]; it is not a reading found in print.
A reading
The sources read here give the word two lives in Japanese, after a prehistory in Chinese verse where it reads as two words. Its first life is the war's: the spirit of the industrial warrior, cried out in a series with the spirit of labor and the spirit of the farmer, and, a preface of 1943 says, shown in the weapons [16][17]. Its second is translation, from 1940: since the war the index finds it most often said of warriors not Japanese, a Celt, a crusader, a Maori, in books translated or written about them, and where an English warrior spirit is said of the Japanese, by Baldwin, and of the samurai, by Ikegami, 戦士魂 is its Japanese [20][21][22][23][25][27][28][15].
I read 戦士魂 as the word for a warrior spirit that names no particular warrior. 武士魂 says samurai; 戦士魂 says whoever fights, and that is what translators have wanted it for. It can be said of the samurai, and has been, but it does not say samurai. A buyer who hangs these characters says warrior spirit in the widest sense the English has: the spirit of a fighter, of any side, and of a person who fights for something. A reader of Japanese may also hear in it the war years of the factory warrior; the scroll does not mean them unless its owner does.
Notes
- The ruby of 1924 reads 戰士 せんし and 魂 こん, a Chinese line read in its Chinese sounds; it is not a reading of the Japanese compound [10].
- Several items in the index that seem to carry the compound read, at their snippets, 戦士、魂 or 戦士。魂, a word boundary marked by punctuation, and are not counted [9].
- Baldwin's sentence is read in overlapping fragments returned by the Internet Archive's full-text search, not at the page; the fragments join at bushido. Despite, American occupation, much and accept-/ance of discipline [27]. Ikegami's sentence is read the same way [29]. The Japanese uses after 1949 are known here from the National Diet Library's snippets.
- The text layer of the 2000 translation reads サムライハ戦士魂; read here as サムライの戦士魂, as the English the samurai's warrior spirit has it [28][29].
- In the 1943 preface the text layer reads 絕叫, 產業 and 鬪魂; the page, read at full resolution, prints 絶, 産 and 闘, and the quotation follows the page [16].
- At scan 155 the 2000 translation's text layer reads サムニイ, read here as サムライ [28].
- The second Ikegami passage in Japanese is not matched here to its English; her book has at least five sentences with warrior spirit [28][29].
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
Sources not seen
- The pages of the Japanese books of 1940–1944 and after the war, other than the 1943 preface, which the library serves in Japan only or on its premises; their snippets are quoted here [11][13][14][17][19][20][21][22][23][25][26][28][30][31][15].
- Baldwin's Sea Fights and Shipwrecks (1955) and Ikegami's The Taming of the Samurai at the page; lending copies only.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- kotobank, the address for 戦士魂, no entry (HTTP 404). https://kotobank.jp/word/戦士魂
- 戦士 (entry 1390240), JMdict, at jisho.org; jisho.org has no page for 戦士魂 (HTTP 404). https://jisho.org/word/戦士 · https://jisho.org/word/戦士魂
- Weblio, the address for 戦士魂, no headword (HTTP 404). https://www.weblio.jp/content/戦士魂
- 「戦士」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/戦士-549998
- 「魂」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/魂-505768
- "warrior", Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/warrior
- 「武士」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/武士-124344
- Internet Archive full-text search for senshidamashii, one item: Grey Bear, The Continuing Legends of Mother Earth: The Two-Sided Mirror, CreateSpace, 2017. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781981232963
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 戦士魂, all access levels, sorted oldest first, 122 items (searched 28 October 2026). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=戦士魂
- 『國譯水滸傳』 中, 国訳漢文大成, 国民文庫刊行会, 大正13 (1924), p. 568, scan 291. National Diet Library pid 1913118. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913118/1/291
- 『中国戦乱詩』, 1968, scan 76, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1673879. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1673879
- CBETA, search for 戰士魂, no result (against 158 results for 戰士). https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search?q=戰士魂
- 『興亜日本建国史』, 昭和15 (1940), scan 727, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1053400. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1053400
- 『御親閲感想録』, 昭和15 (1940), scan 78, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1119509. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1119509
- ベニト・ムッソリーニー『わが自叙伝』, 谷名輝哉 訳, 昭和15 (1940), scan 145, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1689384. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1689384
- 『産業戦士決戦の書』, 昭和18 (1943), the preface, pp. 2–3, scan 5. National Diet Library pid 1062230. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1062230/1/5
- 『隣組魂』, 昭和18 (1943), scan 35, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 1039457. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039457
- NDL Ngram Viewer, full-text books, 戦士魂 (searched 28 October 2026). https://lab.ndl.go.jp/ngramviewer/
- オー・シュヴェツケンディーク『リヒトホーフェン戦闘機中隊』, 郡山千冬 訳, 創芸社, 昭和18 (1943), scan 39, snippet view; the catalogue record names the German original. National Diet Library pid 1058011. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1058011 · https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000000668075
- 『十字軍』, 1980, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12183395. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12183395
- 『ケルト : 生きている神話』, 1993, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 13140625. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13140625
- 『ワンス・ウォリアーズ』, 1995, scan 27, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 13609978. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13609978
- デーヴ・グロスマン『「人殺し」の心理学』, 安原和見 訳, 原書房, 1998, scan 22, snippet view; the catalogue record names the original, On Killing. National Diet Library pid 13843292. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13843292 · https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002699186
- Richard Strozzi-Heckler, In Search of the Warrior Spirit, North Atlantic Books, 1990, the Internet Archive's catalogue record. Internet Archive insearchofwarrio00stro. https://archive.org/details/insearchofwarrio00stro
- 『日本海軍潜水艦史』, 日本海軍潜水艦史刊行会, 1979, scan 112, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12230252. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12230252
- 『鎮魂西海の浮城 : 佐世保鎮守府在籍軍艦史』, 1986, scan 141, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 12729872. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12729872
- Hanson W. Baldwin, Sea Fights and Shipwrecks: True Tales of the Seven Seas, Hanover House, 1955, the chapter on Submarine No. 6, fragments returned by the Internet Archive's full-text search. Internet Archive seafightsshipwre00bald. https://archive.org/details/seafightsshipwre00bald
- 池上英子『名誉と順応 : サムライ精神の歴史社会学』, 森本醇 訳, NTT出版, 2000, scans 125 and 155, snippet view; the catalogue record names the original, The Taming of the Samurai. National Diet Library pid 14066900. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14066900 · https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002872812
- Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan, Harvard University Press, the printing the Internet Archive dates 1997, fragments returned by the Internet Archive's full-text search. Internet Archive tamingofsamuraih0000ikeg. https://archive.org/details/tamingofsamuraih0000ikeg
- 『古代史上の秋田』, 1981, scan 112, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 9538565. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9538565
- 『浄瑠璃坂の討入り : 忠臣蔵への道』, 1999, scan 27, snippet view. National Diet Library pid 14340474. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14340474
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for せんしだましい and せんしだましひ, no result (searched 20 October 2026). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=せんしだましい