Where does “esquire” come from?
Esquire comes from Old French escuier, from Latin scutarius meaning shield-bearer, derived from scutum (shield) and the agent suffix -arius.
esquire (English): A lawyer; A male member of the gentry ranking...
Definitions
- A lawyer; A male member of the gentry ranking...
Ancestry of “esquire”, step by step
esquire traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Old French escuier
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old French | escuier | squire; shield-bearer |
| 2 | Latin | scūtārius | of a shield, belonging to a shield |
| 3 | Latin | scūtum | a type of shield: the scutum, the large oblong wooden shield carried by the Roman infantry |
| 4 | Proto-Indo-European | skei- | to cut, to divide, to separate; to cut, split; to... |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | sek- | to cut, cut off, sever |
via Old French escuyer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old French | escuyer | — |