square [ME] A word that comes via Old French esquare from Latin quadra ‘square’. Squad [M17th] and squadron [M16th], which originally meant a group of soldiers in square formation, come via French from the Italian form squadra. The rather odd term a square meal [M19th] has many explanations in folk etymology. As with square deal [L19th] and fair and square [E17th], square here simply suggests something that is ‘honest’, ‘straightforward’, or ‘right’, with the additional idea that it has been solidly or properly constructed. The word was used since the 17th century to mean ‘honourable, upright’, which gave us the square person who is old-fashioned or boringly conventional [M20th]. To square the circle [M17th] is to do something impossible. The phrase refers to the mathematical problem of constructing a square equal in area to a given circle, a problem which cannot be solved by purely geometrical means, though this has not stopped mathematicians from the ancient Greeks onwards from trying to solve the puzzle.