[Olphander]

I don't think that's really true. Although it obviously has many other meanings, 士 is the standard character for the warrior caste in 士農工商 . Conversely I think that samurai sounds a bit gung ho and is perhaps excessively used foreigners. I'm quite sure that it doesn't really matter though...

I agree that samurai is overused by foreigners. You'd probably here 武士 (bushi) as much here as samurai. But the 士 here really does mean "gentleman", in the Confucian tradition. Bushi and samurai are fairly interchangable since they both refer to martial "gentlemen". But as was mentioned before, it's also used for things like bengoshi (弁護士), lawyer, which has basically nothing to do with samurai. The conflation, I think, is that samurai were expected to be gentlemen.

It's possible it could be taken to mean about the same as samurai, but only if we're using samurai in the correct context, as a social caste and not an occupation.