Squadron

How to spell squadron

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce squadron

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does squadron mean?

1. nounAn organised body of military aircraft, warships, or cavalry operating as a unit.

Squadron in a sentence

• The fighter squadron scrambled at first light to intercept the intruders.

• His grandfather commanded a cavalry squadron during the war.

Where does squadron come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word arrived in English in the late 1500s from the Italian squadrone, an augmentative form of squadra, which meant a square or a block of soldiers drawn up in a square formation. Squadra itself goes back through Vulgar Latin exquadra to the Latin quadra, meaning 'a square', a relative of quattuor, the Latin for 'four', since a square has four sides. The military sense travelled naturally: troops once massed in square blocks, so a squadron came to mean an organised body of cavalry, and later a group of warships and then aircraft. The same quadra root sits inside familiar words like 'quadrant', 'square', and 'squad', which is in fact a shortened cousin of squadron. Remembering that link to 'squad' helps fix the unstressed ending: it is -ron, not -ren or -rin.

How the word is built

• squadr- (from Italian squadra: a square or squad of troops)
• -on (augmentative suffix denoting a larger group)