[SQUARE a.]
1. A precise, formal, old-fashioned person; one having strict or narrow ideas of conduct. Usu. qualified by old, and with initial capital.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 164. I could hardly keep my gravity on this ludicrous occasion, but old Squaretoes was differently affected.
1775. [see BIGWIG].
1785. G. A. Bellamy, Apology (ed. 3), I. 195. He was sorry that old Square-toes was obliged … to go out of town immediately.
1819. ‘Rabelais the Younger,’ Abeillard & H., 219. Finding old Square-toes in the study Stern, gloomy, sulky, dark, and muddy.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, Pref. p. xvi. Giving the idea that Amold turned out a set of young square-toes.
1889. Stevenson, Master of Ballantrae, 99. Even Square-Toes has a certain vivacity when his stake is imperilled.
2. Square-toed shoes.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, I. viii. The Doctor made a low bow … and walked off on his creaking square-toes after his patron.
