square

UK/skwɛə/US/skwɛɹ/

nounA24 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,083 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: squares

A square has four straight sides of the same length and four right-angled corners. One tile on a bathroom floor, one of the sixty-four squares on a chessboard, the little box on a form you have to tick.

The town square is the open space in the middle of a town: flagstones, a fountain, pigeons, somewhere to buy coffee — the market square, Trafalgar Square. In maths the square of a number is that number times itself, so the square of five is twenty-five, and you square a number to get there. As an adjective it means square-shaped, and also honest and straight: a square deal, a square meal. You square up to a problem when you turn and face it, and you square accounts when you settle them. Old slang calls a dull, conventional person a square, and that one now sounds like a film from 1958.

Definitions of square

1nounsquareA shape with four equal straight sides and four right angles.A2~12%
“Cut the sandwich into four small squares.”
2nounplazaAn open public space in the middle of a town, with buildings around it.A2~45%
“The band played in the square all afternoon.”
synonyms: plaza, piazza
3nounresultThe result of multiplying a number by itself.B1~5%
“The square of six is thirty-six.”
4adjectiveshapedShaped like a square, with four equal sides.A2~38%
“They eat at a square table by the window.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 160 sentences found in the wild and placed 115 of them on a sense (45 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

back to square one — back at the beginning with nothing gained
a square meal — a proper, filling meal
square up to — turn and face a difficulty or an opponent
fair and square — honestly and beyond argument

Also practised as

nounThe open place in a town center where people meet by the fountain.

Where it comes from

Behind square is Latin quadrus, reached through ex and quadro: Vulgar Latin exquadra, then Old French esquarre, and English took it from there. Squad is the very same word arrived along a different road. Old English had no need of any of it and said fēowerecge: four-edged.

Vulgar Latin
*exquadra
Old French
esquarre
Middle English
square
English, today
square

From Middle English square, sqware, squyre; from Old French esquarre, esquerre, (modern French équerre), from Vulgar Latin exquadra, from Latin - ex + quadro, from quadrus (compare quad and quadra). a doublet of squad and squadra. fēowerecge (fēower nominative + ecg accusative, as in "four-edged").

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colors, Shapes & Numbers, Light & Shadow, Shapes & Lines, Chess & Card Games

Practise this word

square in the wild

At the height of the protests on May 17, about one million people were assembled in the square.
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
Trafalgar Square is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London.
Trafalgar Square
Progress stalled after the death of Nash in 1835, and the square did not open until 1844.
Trafalgar Square
The square holds the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.
Tiananmen Square
A national flagpole is located at the northern end of the square, where flag-raising and flag-lowering ceremonies are held daily at sunrise and sunset.
Tiananmen Square

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of square

1nounsquareA shape with four equal straight sides and four right angles.A2~12%

“Cut the sandwich into four small squares.”

2nounplazaAn open public space in the middle of a town, with buildings around it.A2~45%

“The band played in the square all afternoon.”

synonyms: plaza, piazza

3nounresultThe result of multiplying a number by itself.B1~5%

“The square of six is thirty-six.”

4adjectiveshapedShaped like a square, with four equal sides.A2~38%

“They eat at a square table by the window.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 160 sentences found in the wild and placed 115 of them on a sense (45 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.