Squyre

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A young nobleman who served a knight as an attendant during training ; a landowner of gentle birth who lived in the country ; to accompany or escort a person somewhere
2. An aspiring youth in service to a knight, learning chivalry ; an old term for a country landowner of good family ; to act as an escort for someone
3. A trainee attendant bound to a knight in medieval times ; a rural gentleman who held land and status ; to go along with and guard a companion

Etymology: Squyre is the Middle English spelling of "squire," and the word's history runs through a single job description: a young man attending a knight. It came into English from Old French "esquier," which descended from Latin "scutarius," a "shield-bearer," formed from "scutum," shield. The Latin word named a soldier who carried a heavy shield, and the French form narrowed to the armed attendant who looked after a knight's armour and horses while learning the warrior's trade. The spelling "squyre" was common in Middle English, when writers such as Chaucer used it in works like the "Canterbury Tales," where the Squire is a young aristocrat who rides with his father the Knight. The modern spelling "squire" settled in later as the Middle English forms were standardised. Over time the title drifted from the battlefield to the country. A squire came to mean an esquire who held land, and eventually the local landowner who presided over a village, which is why the word now calls up the rural gentleman rather than the armed youth.

Synonyms: esquire, attendant, page