English

Noun

squire ‎(plural squires)

1. A shield-bearer or armor-bearer who attended a knight.
2. A title of dignity next in degree below knight, and above gentleman. See esquire.
3. A male attendant on a great personage.
4. A devoted attendant or follower of a lady; a beau.
5. A title of office and courtesy. See under esquire.
6. (Britain, colloquial) Term of address to an equal.
   • 1969, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Dead Parrot sketch

     Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh, we're right out of parrots.

Translations

Verb

squire ‎(third-person singular simple present squires, present participle squiring, simple past and past participle squired)

1. To attend as a squire.
   • 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” lines 303-307,

     And yet of our apprentice Ianekyn,

     For his crisp heer, shyninge as gold so fyn,

     And for he squiereth me bothe up and doun,

     Yet hastow caught a fals suspecioun;

     I wol hym noght, thogh thou were deed to-morwe.

2. To attend as a beau, or gallant, for aid and protection.
   • 1753, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Chapter 48,

     On some occasions, he displayed all his fund of good humour, with a view to beguile her sorrow; he importuned her to give him the pleasure of squiring her to some place of innocent entertainment; and, finally, insisted upon her accepting a pecuniary reinforcement to her finances, which he knew to be in a most consumptive condition.

   • 1759, Oliver Goldsmith, “On Dress,” in The Bee, 13 October, 1759,

     Perceiving, however, that I had on my best wig, she offered, if I would ’squire her there, to send home the footman.

   • 1812, Henry Weber (ed.), The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Volume 3, p. 326, footnote 3,

     To man a lady was, in former times, a phrase similar to the vulgar one at present in use, to squire.

   • 1821, Walter Scott, Kenilworth, Chapter 4,

     Yes, such a thing as thou wouldst make of me should wear a book at his girdle instead of a poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin’s, and quarrel in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her.

   • 1936, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Part One, Chapter 1,

     And raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one’s liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered.

   • 1988, Edmund White, The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, 1994, Chapter Six,

     A butch entered squiring a blonde whore tottering along on spike heels under dairy whip hair, her chubby hand rising again and again to tuck a stray wisp back into the creamy dome.

Synonyms

• (attend as a beau): escort

Etymology 2

From Middle French esquierre ‎(“rule, carpenter's square”), from Old French esquarre ‎(“square”) See square.

Noun

squire ‎(plural squires)

1. (obsolete) A ruler; a carpenter's square; a measure.
   • 1598, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

     But temperaunce, said he, with golden squire, / Betwixt them both can measure out a meane.

   • 1598, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, V, 2, 474.

     do not you know my lady's foot by the squire.

   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

     as for a workman not to know his axe, saw, squire, or any other toole, […].

   • 1628, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, IV, 4, 348.

     twelve foot and a half by the squire.

Anagrams

• quires, risque, risqué