''Square'' is slang for a person who is conventional and old-fashioned, similar to a fuddy-duddy. This sense of the word "
square
In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...
" 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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
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 ''
square
In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...
'' dates to the 13th century and derives from the
Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th 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">Square Deal#Coining of the term">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 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
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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
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
In vertebrate anatomy, the hip, or coxaLatin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) (: ''coxae'') in medical terminology, refers to either an anatomical region or a joint on t ...
'', 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.
See also
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Hip (slang)
Hip is a slang for ''fashionably current'' and ''in the know''. To be hip is to have "an attitude, a stance" in opposition to the "unfree world", or to what is square (slang), square or prudish, prude. Being ''hip'' is also about being informed ...
The Establishment
In sociology and in political science, the term the establishment describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution. In the Praxis (process), praxis of wealth and Power (social and politica ...