square
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "square", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "square" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "square" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
square is aEnglishnoun. It means: A polygon with four straight sides of equal length and four right angles; an equilateral rectangle; a regular quadrilateral. Pronounced /skwɛə/. It ranks #1,541 in English word frequency. Often confused with sure and stare.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | square |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /skwɛə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,541 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for square is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skwɛə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,541 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 27 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for square, with forms such as "qsuare", "sqaure", and "sqquare". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 19 confusable-pair relationships, "sure", "stare", "squat", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English square, sqware, squyre; from Old French esquarre, esquerre, (modern French équerre), from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, from Latin ex- + quadro, from quadrus (compare English quad and quadra). Doublet of squad and squadra. Displaced Old Englis… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is square, spelled S-Q-U-A-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A polygon with four straight sides of equal length and four right angles; an equilateral rectangle; a regular quadrilateral.
- 2Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
- 3Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
- 4Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
- 5Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
- 6Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
- 7An L- or T-shaped tool used to place objects or draw lines at right angles.
- 8An L- or T-shaped tool used to place objects or draw lines at right angles.
- 9An open space or park, often in the center of a town, not necessarily square in shape, often containing trees, seating and other features pleasing to the eye.
- 10An open space or park, often in the center of a town, not necessarily square in shape, often containing trees, seating and other features pleasing to the eye.
- 11The product of a number or quantity multiplied by itself; the second power of a number, value, term or expression.
- 12A pattern to be matched that consists of a subpattern repeated, such as "papa" or "wikiwiki".
- 13A body of troops drawn up in a square formation.
- 14A socially conventional or conservative person; a person who has little or no interest in the latest fads or trends.
- 15The symbol # on a telephone; hash.
- 16The central area of a cricket field, with one or more pitches of which only one is used at a time.
- 17A unit of measurement of area, equal to a 10 foot by 10 foot square, i.e. 100 square feet or roughly 9.3 square metres. Used in real estate for the size of a house or its rooms, though progressively being replaced by square metres in metric countries such as Australia.
- 18A unit used in measuring roof area equivalent to 100 square feet (9.29 m²) of roof area. The materials for roofing jobs are often billed by the square in the United States.
- 19A mortarboard.
- 20Ellipsis of square meal.
- 21Exact proportion; justness of workmanship and conduct; regularity; rule.
- 22The relation of harmony, or exact agreement; equality; level.
- 23The position of planets distant ninety degrees from each other; a quadrate.
- 24The act of squaring, or quarrelling; a quarrel.
- 25Cigarette.
- 26A vat used for fermentation.
- 27A well-defined torso.
Etymology
From Middle English square, sqware, squyre; from Old French esquarre, esquerre, (modern French équerre), from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, from Latin ex- + quadro, from quadrus (compare English quad and quadra). Doublet of squad and squadra. Displaced Old English fēowerecge (fēower nominative + ecg accusative, as in "four-edged").
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: qsuare,sqaure,sqquare,squaer,squarre,squrae,ssquare,suqare
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for square
Misspelling Variants of "square"
Frequency rank: #1,541 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: