Sc. [SQUARE sb. 1.] A carpenter, stone-cutter, or other workman who regularly uses a square for adjusting or testing his work.
c. 1790. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), VI. 171/2. The incorporated trades [of Dumfries],… viz. square-men, smiths [etc.].
1808. Mayne, Siller Gun, I. xxvi. The squaremen follow’d i’ the raw, And syne the weavers.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. V. i. How many hammermen and squaremen, bakers and brewers … must ply their old daily work.
1879. Encycl. Brit., IX. 750/1. There was probably a pass-word, such as the squareman word used in the ‘brithering’ of the wrights and slaters.
