taikun

Taikun is an English-language historical term used to refer to the Shogun, the de facto ruler of Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate. It is not a formal Japanese title, and its precise origin in Japanese is debated. The word is commonly described as a transliteration of a term meaning "great lord," though there is no canonical Japanese spelling that corresponds uniformly to "taikun." In practice, Western writers used taikun as an honorific for the shōgun, who held supreme political power under the nominal authority of the emperor.

The shogunate, especially the Tokugawa regime (1603–1868), governed Japan's affairs while the emperor remained a largely ceremonial figurehead. The term taikun is most associated with this period in English-language sources. A related term, taikō (太閤), referred to a retired regent—most famously Toyotomi Hideyoshi—but it is not synonymous with taikun.

With the Meiji Restoration beginning in 1868 and the restoration of imperial rule, the shogunate was dissolved, and the term taikun largely fell from official use. In modern Japan, taikun appears mainly in historical writing and in English-language discussions of the Edo period, and in fiction or historical commentary aiming to evoke the era.