a. [SQUARE a. 12.]
1. Naut. Having the yards and sails placed across the masts in contrast to fore and aft; † having exceptionally long yards (Falconer).
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), s.v. Xebec, The crew of every xebec has … the labour of three square-rigged ships.
1809. Hull Dock Act, 1503. Capable of containing seventy sail of ships or square-rigged vessels.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxiii. [He] was making his first voyage in a square-rigged vessel.
1895. Oracle Encycl., I. 503/2. Brig, the general term for a vessel with two masts, having a boom-mainsail, and otherwise square-rigged.
2. transf. (See quot.)
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 251/1. George and his two fellow-labourers were ‘square-rigged’—that is, well dressed.
