Now Hist. Also 8 Sc. -ronie, -rony. [a. It. squadrone (volante): cf. SQUADRON sb. 7.] A Scottish political party in the early years of the 19th century.
1707–14. Lockhart Papers (1817), I. 294. In the main the united Tories and Squadrone did not succeed so weel as they expected.
1708. Caldwell Pap. (Maitland), 215. If ye court be generous they’ll at least procure for him ye fines for a wrongous imprisonment that is due by the squadrony.
1800. A. Carlyle, Autob., 40. By good-luck for the clergy, there was another party distinction among them,… viz., that of Argathelian and Squadrone.
† b. As adj. Hovering between two parties.
c. 1720. Warden, in Wodrow’s Corr. (1843), II. 538. I am squadronie in that matter, being sometime on one side and sometime on another.
