[f. SQUARE v.]
1. a. One who reduces wood, stone, etc., to a square form.
1422–3. Foreign Acc. 1 Hen. VI., i. Carpentarii vocati fellers & squarers.
1440. Found. St. Bartholomew’s (E.E.T.S.), 29. Hewerrys of wode with axe and squarerys of tymbyr with chippynge axe.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, Quadratarius, a squarer of marble.
c. 1601. Keymor, Observ. Dutch Fishing (1664), 7. She imployeth … at Land … also Squarers of Timber,… Carpenters, Shipwrights, Smiths.
1611. Cotgr., Esquarrisseur, a squarer of stones, or timber.
b. With out (see quot.).
1611. Florio, Squadra mondi, a squarer out of worlds, an Astrologer.
c. One who aims at squaring the circle.
1852. De Morgan, in Graves, Life Sir W. R. Hamilton (1889), III. 350. A squarer of the circle said to me … about some lines [etc.]. Ibid. (1865), in Athenæum, Oct., 504. The new squarer who advertises … that, having read that the circular ratio was undetermined [etc.].
1879. Fortn. Rev., Aug., 293. Mathematicians do not stop to argue with squarers of the circle or with reasoners that the earth is flat.
† 2. A contentious or quarrelsome person. Obs.–1
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, I. i. 82. Is there no young squarer now, that will make a voyage with him to the diuell?
3. Sc. ‘One who squares his elbows for fighting; a sparrer’ (Ogilvie, 1850).
