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squire

Example Sentences Origin

noun

(in England) a country gentleman, especially the chief landed proprietor in a district.

(in the Middle Ages) a young man of noble birth who as an aspirant to knighthood served a knight.

a personal attendant, as of a person of rank.

a man who accompanies or escorts a woman.

a title applied to a justice of the peace, local judge, or other local dignitary of a rural district or small town.

verb (used with object)

to attend as, or in the manner of, a squire.

to escort (a woman), as to a dance or social gathering.

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Squire is one of our favorite verbs.

So is skedaddle. Does it mean:

to run away hurriedly; flee.

to spend time idly; loaf.

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Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English squier; aphetic variant of esquire

Related forms

squire·less, adjective

squire·like, adjective

un·squired, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To squire

Example Sentences

Bush isn't the only guy who fancies himself as a country squire in cowboy country.

Squire and several women reintroduced the process, from.

Collins

World English Dictionary

squire (skwaɪə)

—n
1.	a country gentleman in England, esp the main landowner in a rural community
2.	feudal history a young man of noble birth, who attended upon a knight
3.	rare a man who courts or escorts a woman
4.	informal chiefly (Brit) a term of address used by one man to another, esp, unless ironic, to a member of a higher social class
5.	(Austral) See snapper an immature snapper

—vb
6.	(tr) (of a man) to escort (a woman)

[C13: from Old French esquier; see esquire]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

squire

late 13c., "young man who attends a knight," later "member of the landowning class ranking below a knight" (c.1300), from O.Fr. esquier "squire," lit. "shield carrier" (see esquire). Meaning "country gentleman, landed proprietor" is from 1670s; as a general term of address

EXPAND

to a gentleman, it is attested from 1828. The verb meaning "to attend (a lady) as a gallant" is first recorded late 14c.

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"The field maneuvers may be different from those in Holmes's day, and the villain is more socially mobile, but since Sir Arthur we have not changed the three essential ingredients of the private eye. He must be a bachelor, with the bachelor's harum-scarum availability at all hours (William Powell's marriage to Myrna "Nora" Loy, a wistful concession to the family trade, fooled nobody). He must have an inconspicuous fund of curious knowledge, which in the end is always crucially relevant. He must pity the official guardians of the law. Of course, the twentieth century has grafted some interesting personality changes on the original. Holmes was an eccentric in the Victorian sense, a man with queer hobbies—cocaine was lamentable but pardonably melodramatic—whose social code was essentially that of the ruling classes. He was, in a way, the avenging squire of the underworld ready to administer a horsewhipping to the outcasts who were never privileged by birth to receive it from their fathers. Bogart is a displaced person whose present respectability is uncertain, a classless but well-contained vagabond who is not going to be questioned about where he came from or where he is going. ("I came to Casablanca for the waters." "But there are no waters in Casablanca." "I was misinformed.")"

-Alistair Cooke

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