Where does “squire” come from?
Squire comes from Middle English esquire, from Old French escuier, from Latin scutarius meaning shield-bearer, from scutum meaning shield, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European roots skei- and sek- meaning to cut or separate.
squire (English): A shield-bearer or armor-bearer who attended a...
Definitions
- A shield-bearer or armor-bearer who attended a...
Ancestry of “squire”, step by step
squire traces back through 3 separate lines of ancestry.
via Old French esquire
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old French | esquire | — |
| 2 | Old French | esquarre | square |
| 3 | Vulgar Latin | exquadra | — |
| 4 | Latin | ex | A name of the letter "X"; out of, from |
| 5 | Latin | commūnicō | to impart, share |
| 6 | Latin | commūnis | common, commonplace, ordinary, general, universal, shared, shared alike, of both sides, belonging to two or more together |
| 7 | Old Latin | com(m)oinis | — |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | kommoinis | common |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱom-moy-ni- | held in common |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱóm | beside, near, by, with |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱe | Deictic particle, here; Post-positional... |
| 12 | Middle English | kyt | — |
| 13 | German | kitt | putty certain kinds of cement used for fixing e.g. window panes |
| 14 | Old High German | kuti | — |
| 15 | Proto-West Germanic | kwidu | gum, resin |
| 16 | Proto-Germanic | kweduz | resin |
| 17 | Proto-Indo-European | gʷet- | resin, gum; to say, speak |
via Middle English esquire
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | esquire | — |
| 2 | Old French | escuier | squire; shield-bearer |
| 3 | Latin | scūtārius | of a shield, belonging to a shield |
| 4 | Latin | scūtum | a type of shield: the scutum, the large oblong wooden shield carried by the Roman infantry |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | skei- | to cut, to divide, to separate; to cut, split; to... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | sek- | to cut, cut off, sever |