Crossword clues for seppuku
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Seppuku \Sep*pu"ku\, n. Same as Hara-kiri.
Seppuku, or hara-kiri, also came into vogue.
--W. E.
Griffis.
Wiktionary
n. A form of ritual suicide by disembowelment using a blade, practiced by Japanese samurai, especially to rid oneself of shame, as a means of protest or, formerly, as a method of capital punishment.
Wikipedia
Seppuku (切腹, "belly- or abdomen-cutting") or harakiri (腹切り, "cutting the belly", sometimes metathesized in English as "harikari") is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and drawing the blade from left to right, slicing the abdomen open.
Usage examples of "seppuku".
Ten men had been demoted for untidiness, the entire night watch paraded in ignominy throughout the castle, two samurai ordered to commit seppuku because they were late for their watch, and four nightsoil collectors thrown off the battlements for spilling part of a container in the castle garden.
By custom another samurai always assisted at a seppuku, standing slightly behind the kneeling man, to decapitate him with a single stroke before the agony became unbearable and uncontrollable and so shamed the man at the supreme moment of his life.
Samurai women committed seppuku by thrusting their knives into their throats and therefore needed no assistance.
Sometimes they would stay and fight to the death, sometimes they would commit seppuku with ceremony.
Yabu told him about the attempted seppuku on the first night, and how he had neatly bent the Anjin-san to their mutual advantage.
The Lord Goroda was forty-nine when he committed seppuku to prevent capture.
I tell you ladies commit seppuku by slitting their throats, Anjin-san, and not their stomachs like men?
So sorry, a general and a senior administrator commit seppuku in the donjon forecourt.
I cannot accept that and beg to be allowed to commit seppuku and go before you.
At one station where horses were not available the samurai in charge was removed, his stipend given to another, and he was invited to commit seppuku or shave his head and become a priest.
Then your wife said she would commit seppuku at once without my permission before she would allow you to be shamed in that way.
Sudara would order the man to commit seppuku now, which would save the pension and all further bother and increase the expertise of the replacement.
I beg permission to commit seppuku for having held this shameful secret so long.
Officially he committed seppuku because he was caught embezzling funds from the treasury.
With no hope of survival, he retired within the temple hall and committed seppuku to avoid capture.