Four-square

a. (adv.), and sb. [f. FOUR a. + SQUARE.]

  A.  adj. Having four equal sides; square.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 19843 (Cott.).

1470–85.  Malory, Arthur, I. iii. There was sene in the chircheyard ayenst the hyghe aulter a grete stone four square lyke vnto a marbel stone.

1523.  Fitzherbert, The Boke of Husbandry, § 34. Whyte wheate is lyke polerde wheate in the busshell, but it hath anis, and the eare is foure-square, and wyll make white breed.

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav. 59. Adioyning is another foure-square roome, whose blacke marble wals are yet abiding.

1745.  E. Haywood, The Female Spectator (1748), II. 279. I would have placed at the bottom of every lustre that hangs over each table, a four-square looking-glass, to the end that it would be impossible for those who play, to avoid seeing themselves all the time.

1849.  Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, vi. 164. The crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell eastward over the iron wall of Joux, and the four-square keep of Granson.

  transf. and fig.  1603.  Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1304. Sixteene is a number quadrangular or foure-square.

1877.  Dowden, Shaks. Prim., vi. 135. Goneril is the more formidable, because the more incapable of any hatred which is not solid and four-square.

1886.  Lowell, Pr. Wks. (1890), VI. 176. I had rather the College should turn out one of Aristotle’s four-square men, capable of holding his own in whatever field he may be cast, than a score of lopsided ones developed abnormally in one direction.

  b.  quasi-adv. In a square form or position.

c. 1430.  Two Cookery-bks., I. 46. Caste by þe cake round a-bowte, & close hym foure-square.

1522–3.  Fitzherbert, The Boke of Husbandry, § 13. Bere-barleye or bygge wolde be sowen vpoon lyghte and drye grounde, and hathe an eare thre ynches of lengthe or more, setts foure-square lyke pecke-whete.

1852.  Tennyson, Death Dk. Wellington, 30.

  fig.  1845–6.  Trench, Huls. Lect., Ser. I. iii. 47–8. And as we have a Gospel which stands four-square, with a side facing each side of the spiritual world, so have we a two-fold development of the more dogmatic element of the New Testament.

1877.  L. Morris, Epic Hades, III. 260.

1884.  Warfield, in Chr. Treas., Feb., 90/1. A masterly argument, say, well ordered and set foursquare against all possible opposition.

  B.  sb. A figure having four equal sides.

1587.  Golding, De Mornay, xv. 241. The vnderstanding part conteineth in his power both the other two powers, as a Fiuesquare conteineth both a Fowersquare and a Triangle.

1613.  M. Ridley, Magn. Bodies, 32. You may forme the stone … into a fouresquare.

1696.  Temple, Ess., iii. § 2 (ed. 4), 175. The imperial city of Peking … is a regular Four-square; the Wall of each side is six Miles in length.

1787.  M. Cutler, in Life, Jrnls. & Corr. (1888), I. 224. The whole roof forms the base of the steeple in a four-square; in the middle is raised a four-square tower of half the size of the whole house.

1844.  Upton, Physioglyphics, 174. It is then of a shape between a circle and four-square.

  Hence † Four-squared ppl. a. = FOUR-SQUARE a. Also Foursquarewise adv., forming a square.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, VII. ix. 77.

1535.  Coverdale, Lam. iii. 9. He hath stopped vp my wayes with foure squared stones, & made my pathes croked.

1551.  Turner, Herbal, I. O ij. Walwurt … hath a forsquared stalk and full of ioyntes.

1610.  Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 701. The West part, nothing so populous, is compassed in with a very faire Wall and the River together, fouresquarewise.

1694.  Molyneux, in Phil. Trans., XVIII. 181. Our Irish Basaltes is composed of Columns, whereof none are four-squared, and all of them divided into many Joynts.

1708.  Motteux, Rabelais, IV. xl. 160. It was a wonderful Machine, so contriv’d, that by the means of large Engines that were round about it in Rows, it throw’d forked Iron Bars, and four squar’d Steel Boults.