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Possible definitions for kimura
Himera
Ancient Greek city, N coast of Sicily. It was founded c.649 BC by Syracusan exiles and Chalcidian inhabitants of Zancle (see Messina). An unsuccessful Carthaginian invasion of Sicily ended in the death of Hamilcar at the Battle of Himera in 480 BC. It was finally destroyed in 409 BC by Hamilcar's grandson Hannibal. Its only visible relic is a Doric temple (480 BC); many of its lion-head spouts are exhibited in the Palermo Museum.
kagura
In Shinto, a traditional style of music and dancing used in religious ceremonies. Kagura dances dedicated to native deities are a reenactment of the propitiatory dance that lured the sun goddess Amaterasu from her cave in ancient myth. Largely unchanged for the past 1,500 years, the dances are performed to the accompaniment of chants, drums, brass gongs, and flutes. The music is of two types: one to praise the spirits or seek their aid, the other to entertain the gods.
samurai
Member of the Japanese warrior class. In early Japanese history, culture was associated with the imperial court and warriors were looked down on. The samurai became important with the rise in private estates (shoen), which needed samurai protection. Their power increased, and when Minamoto Yoritomo established the Kamakura shogunate (1192-1333), they became the ruling class. They were characterized by an ethic of discipline, stoicism, and service (see bushido). Samurai culture developed further during the Ashikaga shogunate (1338-1573). During two centuries of peace under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867), they were largely transformed into civil bureaucrats. As government employees, they received a fixed stipend that was worth less and less in the flourishing merchant economy of the 18th-19th cent. in Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka. By the mid-19th cent., lower-ranking samurai, eager for societal change and anxious to create a strong Japan in the face of Western encroachment, overthrew the shogunal government in the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Feudal distinctions were abolished in 1871. Some samurai rebelled (see Saigo Takamori) but most threw themselves into the modernization of Japan. See also daimyo, han.
Timur
Turkic conqueror of Islamic faith whose conquests reached from India and Russia to the Mediterranean Sea. Born near Samarkand, he settled in Transoxania (modern Uzbekistan) after taking part in campaigns there with Genghis Khan's son Chagatai. (Timur Lenk, or Tamerlane, means "Timur the Lame," reflecting the battle wounds he received.) Through machinations and treachery he took over Transoxania and proclaimed himself the restorer of the Mongol empire. In the 1380s he began his conquest of Persia, taking Khorasan and E Persia in 1383-85 and W Persia as far as Mesopotamia and Georgia in 1386-94. He occupied Moscow for a year. When revolts broke out in Persia, he ruthlessly suppressed them, massacring the populations of whole cities. In 1398 he invaded India, ...
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