1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Squire

SQUIRE, an abbreviated form of “esquire” (q.v.), originally with the same meaning of an attendant on a knight. In this form, however, the word has developed certain special connotations. Thus in England it is used partly as a courtesy title, partly as a description of the chief landed proprietor, usually the lord of the manor, in a parish the lesser proprietors being “gentlemen” or yeomen. In some parts also it is not uncommon for the title of “squire” to be given to small freeholders of the yeoman class, known in Ireland half contemptuously as “squireens.” In the United States the title has also survived as applied to justices of the peace, local judges and other dignitaries in country districts and towns. In another sense “squire” has survived in its sense of “attendant,” “to squire” being used so early as Chaucer's day as synonymous with “to wait upon.” A “squire of dames” is thus a man very attentive to women and much in their company. Footpads and highwaymen were termed sometimes “squires of the pad” as well as “gentlemen of the road.”