[Illisezek]

Samurai is 侍. It's a Japanese word and it has a standard Japanese character. I've never heard of anyone reading a different kanji as samurai, and it makes very little sense to me that it could happen. I certainly doubt you could find many/any Japanese people who would look at 士 and think of samurai.

Since I was taught that use of 士 (as I recall derived from the sense of an exemplar of good behaviour or something) to refer to samurai instead of 侍developed in the Edo period I have to disagree.

Aden