Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also daimio, former title of the chief nobles of Japan, 1839, from Japanese, literally "big name," from Chinese dai "great" + mio, myo "name."
Wiktionary
n. A lord during the Japanese feudal period.
Wikipedia
The were the powerful feudal lords who, until their decline in the early Meiji period, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. In the term, literally means "large", and "myō" stands for , meaning private land.
Subordinate only to the Shogun, daimyo were the most powerful feudal rulers from the 10th century to the middle 19th century in Japan. From the shugo of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku to the daimyo of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history.
The term "daimyo" is also sometimes used to refer to the leading figures of such clans, also called " lord". It was usually, though not exclusively, from these warlords that a shogun arose or a regent was chosen. Daimyo often hired samurai to guard their land and they paid the samurai in land or food as relatively few could afford to pay samurai in money. The daimyo era ended soon after the Meiji Restoration with the adoption of the prefecture system in 1871.
Usage examples of "daimyo".
Then somebody would come down from the hills where the daimyo has his court.
The daimyo knows all the top brass in his country, he plays golf with them.
I sold it to a company manufacturing canned foods and they used it for an advertisement, but the daimyo saw it in a magazine and I was told not to model anymore.
The daimyo has a big black car, and I saw MacArthur stamp up to it, honking deep in his chest, but the car just stood there, and the bird got bored in the end and went to look for something else.
She told me that the daimyo thought of the tricks with your mask and my death on the stage.
The daimyo liked his little jokes and he liked to see for himself how they worked out.
And if he was around he could be seen, and if the daimyo was seen he could be described and eventually caught.
The daimyo happened to be in Kyoto and he came to the Golden Dragon and he thought of the game with the mask.
He only had one goal, to meet the daimyo in order to identify him, and to provoke him if possible so that he could be arrested and taken to court.
The daimyo, he thought, and he imagined the commissaris thinking along the same line, was no longer interested in frightening them out of Japan.
The daimyo obviously thought them to be what they were pretending to be, two Dutchmen, representatives of an unlawful organization prepared to buy stolen art and drugs.
The daimyo had no way to check their background in Holland, for his men in Amsterdam were in jail.
The daimyo was now moving toward a union of the Dutch organization and his own, and this boating trip with the charming and seductive Yuiko was his attempt to make contact.
The daimyo had surmised that de Gier wanted to make contact too, for why would he have visited the Golden Dragon otherwise?
So all he, de Gier, had to do now, was to go ahead and see what the daimyo had planned for him to get into that day.