Squiers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Plural form referring to young nobles acting as attendants to knights in medieval society ; junior members of the gentry serving under feudal lords ; apprentices training for knighthood
2. A term denoting several youthful attendants assisting mounted warriors in chivalric times ; multiple aspiring landowners serving noble households ; individuals in training for a position of knighthood
3. Used for groups of adolescent aristocratic assistants to knights ; minor gentry fulfilling duties under greater nobles ; those collectively preparing for elevation into knighthood

Etymology: "Squiers" is the plural of "squier", an older spelling of "squire". The singular form takes its meaning from the same chain of service that gave us the knight himself: a squire was a young man attending a knight, learning arms and horsemanship before he could be dubbed. The plural here covers the whole company of such assistants, along with minor gentry serving greater lords and those preparing collectively for knighthood. Because "squier" is the plural of nothing more complicated than the noun itself, the form carries no separate history of its own. Its story is the story of the singular, which in English spelling kept a variant that later writers dropped in favour of the modern form.

Synonyms: assistants, attendants, escorts, pages

Antonyms: lords, masters