Square

How to spell square

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce square

What does square mean?

1. nounA flat shape with four equal straight sides and four right angles.
2. nounAn open, usually four-sided public space in a town or city, often surrounded by buildings.
3. verbTo multiply a number by itself.
4. adjectiveFair, honest, and straightforward in dealings with others.

Square in a sentence

• noun

  The children drew a perfect square on the whiteboard.

• noun

  The market stalls filled the town square every Saturday morning.

• verb

  To find the area, you square the length of one side.

• adjective

  The mechanic gave me a square deal on the repair.

• noun

  Each tile on the kitchen floor is a small white square.

• noun

  Tourists gathered in the square to photograph the old cathedral.

Where does square come from?

Language of origin: French

The word arrived in English in the 1200s from the Old French esquare, which described a carpenter's tool for checking right angles and, by extension, a four-sided shape. That French term grew out of an unrecorded Latin form, exquadra, built from ex (meaning 'out') and quadra (meaning 'a square'), which in turn rests on quattuor, the Latin for 'four'. The same quattuor root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'quadrant', 'quarter', and 'quadruple', all of which share the idea of fourness. Over the centuries the meaning fanned out from the shape to public spaces laid out on right angles, to the mathematical act of multiplying a number by itself, and to the figurative sense of being honest and fair, as in a 'square deal'. The unusual 'squa-' opening, where 's' is followed by 'qu', is the main thing a writer has to remember, since the word sounds like it could begin in several ways.

How the word is built

• s- (from Latin ex-: out)
• quar- (from quattuor: four)
• -e