''Square'' is slang for a person who is conventional and old-fashioned, similar to a Fuddy-duddy. This sense of the word "

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

" originated with the American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

community in the 1940s, in reference to people out of touch with musical trends. Older senses of the term ''square'' referring positively to someone or something honest and upstanding date back to the 16th century.

History

The English word ''

'' dates to the 13th century and derives from the

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

esquarre
'. By the 1570s, it was in use in reference to someone or something honest or fair. This positive sense is preserved in phrases such as " fair and square", meaning something done in an honest and straightforward manner, and "square deal", meaning an outcome equitable to all sides. A West Country variant on the phrase, "fairs pears", bears the same meaning and was first traced by Cecil Sharp in 1903 when visiting his friend (and lyrics editor)

Charles Marson Charles Latimer Marson (16 May 1859 – 3 March 1914) was an influential figure in the second wave of Christian socialism in England in the 1880s. Later between 1903 and 1906 he collaborated with his good friend Cecil Sharp in the collection and pu ...

in Hambridge, South Somerset. Sharp, C and Marson, C ''Folk Songs from Somerset vols 1-3'' 1904-1906 Simpkin The sense of ''square'' as a derogatory reference to someone conventional or old-fashioned dates to the

scene of the 1940s; the first known reference is from 1944. There it applied to someone who failed to appreciate the medium of jazz, or more broadly, someone whose tastes were out of date and out of touch. It may derive from the rigid motion of a conductor's hands in a conventional, four-beat rhythm. It is used as both an adjective and a noun. A square contrasted with someone who was '' hip'', or in the know. The cub scout promise included the pledge "to be square" from the 1950s to the 1970s. In contemporary language, U.S. branches of the military refer to "squared away" to describe things that are ordered.

References

1940s slang 1950s slang 1960s slang 1970s slang American slang Jazz culture Pejorative terms for people Slang {{English-lang-stub

History

See also

References