Squail (also Squailer), verb. and subs (old).—See quot. 1847. Also squawl.
1651. [Hunt, Bristol, quoted in Notes and Queries, 7 S., iv. 169]. Squailing a goose before his door, and tossing cats and dogs on Shrove Tuesday.
c.1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Squawl—To throw awry.
1834. Southey, Doctor, clxiv. You squail at us on Shrove Tuesday . . . and arm us with steel spurs that we may mangle and kill each other for your sport.
1847. Halliwell, Arch. Words, s.v. Squail. To throw sticks at cocks. Squailer, the stick thrown. Mr. Akerman says sqwoiling is used for throwing, but the thing thrown must be some material not easily managed; with a stick sometimes made unequally heavy by being loaded with lead at one end. Squailing is often very awkwardly performed, because the thing thrown cannot be well directed; hence the word squailing is often used in ridicule of what is done awkwardly, untowardly or irregularly shaped. "She went up the street squailing her arms about, you never saw the like:" an ill shaped loaf is a squailing loaf; Brentford is a long squailing town; and, in Wiltshire, Smithfield Market would be called a squailing sort of a place.—[Abridged].
1881. D. Tel., 30 Nov. Now that the trees are bare and the leaves have fallen, the idlers of the county towns may perhaps sally forth armed with squailers, an ingenious instrument composed of a short stick of pliant cane and a leaded knob, to drive the harmless little squirrel from tree to tree, and lay it a victim at the feet of a successful shots.
Squall, subs. (old).—A girl.
1593. Holyband, Dict. Tu es un cainar, thou art a squall.
1607. Middleton, Michælmas Term, i. 2. A pretty, beautiful, juicy squall.
1611. Cotgrave, Dict., s.v. Obeseau, a young minx or little proud squall.
1630. Taylor, Works. The rich gull gallant Call's her deare and love, Ducke, lambe, squall, sweet-heart, cony, and his dove.
Verb. (B. E.).—'To cry a loud.'
To look out for squalls, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be on guard.
Squantum, subs. (American).—1.
The imaginary name of a place
'very far way back' from whence
rustics and hayseeds (q.v.)
come. Also (2) = a picnic.
Square, adj., verb., and adv.
Square, like round (q.v.), has
lived many lives in slang: in fact,
it has 'boxed the compass,' and
now means the antipodes of what
it meant in Shakspeare's time.
Verb. (old).—1. To disagree, to quarrel or be at variance: hence squarer = a quarreller; while out of square = (1) at variance, and (2) dishonest; to break (or breed) squares = to give offence; at square = angry, at enmity; to square up to = to assume a fighting attitude (Bee); to square up and down = to strut; to see how squares go = to watch events, 'to see how the cat will jump.'
1551. State Trials, 'Gardiner,' 5 Ed. VI. He said he had often squared with me but he loved me never the worse.
1555. R. Eden to Francisco Lopez [First Books on America (Arber), 346]. He speaketh not greatly out of square.
1577. Holinshed, Hist. Engl., iv. 8. She falling at square with hir husband.
1578. Whetstone, Promos and Cassandra, ii. 4. Marry, She knew you and I were at square; At least we fell to blowes.
1592. Shakspeare, Mid. Night's Dream, ii. i[1? P2]. And now, they never meet . . . But they do square. Ibid. (1593), Tit. And., ii. i[1? P2], 100. Are you such fools To square for this. Ibid. (1600), Much Ado, i. i[1? P2], 82. Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil. Ibid. (1608), Anthony and Cleop., iii. ii[11? P2]. Mine honesty and I begin to square.
