squire
Americannoun
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squires
plural
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(in England) a country gentleman, especially the chief landed proprietor in a district.
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(in the Middle Ages) a young man of noble birth who as an aspirant to knighthood served a knight.
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a personal attendant, as of a person of rank.
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a man who accompanies or escorts a woman.
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a title applied to a justice of the peace, local judge, or other local dignitary of a rural district or small town.
verb (used with object)
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squires,
present (3rd person singular)
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squired,
past participle, past
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squiring
present participle
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to attend as, or in the manner of, a squire.
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to escort (a woman), as to a dance or social gathering.
noun
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a country gentleman in England, esp the main landowner in a rural community
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feudal history a young man of noble birth, who attended upon a knight
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rare a man who courts or escorts a woman
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informal a term of address used by one man to another, esp, unless ironic, to a member of a higher social class
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an immature snapper See snapper
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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squiresimple
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squiressimple
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have squiredperfect
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has squiredperfect
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am squiringprogressive
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are squiringprogressive
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is squiringprogressive
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have been squiringperfect progressive
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has been squiringperfect progressive
Past
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squiredsimple
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had squiredperfect
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was squiringprogressive
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were squiringprogressive
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had been squiringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of squire
1250–1300; Middle English squier; aphetic variant of esquire
Explanation
Squire is a British term for a country landowner or gentleman. You can use squire to describe a refined and powerful man, or as a verb meaning to escort: when the queen visited, the police chief squired her around town. You'll encounter squires in 19th-century English novels, and you'll need to understand who they are if you're going to get the subtle class distinctions that often drive the plots of these novels. During feudal times squires were young men who assisted knights. For their loyalty, they were given land, making them and their descendants rich and powerful. If you had land, you could live off the rent your tenant farmers paid, and you’d be free to be a gentleman.
Vocabulary lists containing squire
Medieval Europe - Introductory
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 11
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The Odyssey
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Near the start, when Dunk reluctantly accepts Egg as his squire, he set the terms of their relationship in a dark field outside the town where the tourney that births their legend takes place.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
Martin’s novella series “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” stars Peter Claffey as a wandering knight and Dexter Sol Ansell as his squire, who is secretly a Targaryen prince.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 18, 2026
One such charity case was young Dunk, whom the older knight saved from a thief’s knife before taking on the boy as his squire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2026
It follows the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall, and his squire, Egg.
From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2025
The education of any civilized gentleman in those days used to go through three stages, page, squire, knight, and at any rate the Wart had been through the first two of these.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
We’re obviously very thematically about fathers and sons, knights and squires, and, to a certain extent brothers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 22, 2026
“We have a team of original Medieval Times knights and squires in place, and we look forward to hosting our guests at our already scheduled performances,” Sobol said in a statement.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2023
The sort of — low gentry squires, vicar's sons, this sort of thing.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2019
The woman defended her choice, claiming her family is descended from a long line of “both squires and senators.”
From Fox News ● Dec. 9, 2018
The snowmen the squires had built had grown into monstrous giants, ten feet tall and hideously misshapen.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
My 14-year-old son recently sent me a photo of our dog, Sugaree, taken last December as she was squired about town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 2025
He came to California in 1926 and squired around silent movie actress Aileen Pringle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023
He and his insular team in the presidency, squired by his attentive communications director Fahrettin Altun, have been rolling out prepared speeches, which he delivers live on national television with the aid of a teleprompter.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 10, 2021
Guide Jerry Hahn squired us through the ghost town of Rhyolite, past the tailings of gold and lead mines, over bumpy mining roads, and finally into the twisty curves of Titus Canyon.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2021
"I am. I was bom on the Doroish Marches, Your Grace. As a boy I squired for a knight of Lord Swann's household."
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Treating this kind of team-wide malaise doesn’t necessarily mean culling the entire team, or even squiring off its oldest players with a testimonial and a watch.
From Slate ● Aug. 2, 2021
So is squiring musician Grimes to the Met Gala.
From The Verge ● May 8, 2021
During her second year, Ayad ended up squiring around more guests than she had expected.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 4, 2016
By the wee hours of Tuesday morning, however, Mr. Qaddafi was squiring journalists around neighborhoods filled with Qaddafi sympathizers, saying the rebels who had rolled into the city had fallen into a trap.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2011
She was not deceived in her opinion: he went up to her again at the staircase, and, as they were improvided with a male attendant, insisted upon squiring the ladies to their lodgings.
From The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by T. (Tobias) Smollett
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
