squiry

English

Alternative forms

• squyry

Etymology

From Middle English squierie, that from Old French escuierie, esquierie. See also squire.

Noun

squiry (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) The body of squires, collectively; squirarchy. [14th–16th c.]
   • 1525, Jean Froissart, translated by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, Les Chroniques de Froissart‎^[1], volume 5, published 1902, page 409:

     It was nedefull for them within to make good defence, for against them was the floure of chyvalry and squyry.

   • 1819 April 10, William Cobbett, “To the Governor and Company of the Bank of England”, in Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, volume 34, number 29, page 909:

     The squiry, too, that mass of base loggerheads, joined in the resolution to support the fraud with all their might.

   • 1821, John Wade, A Political Dictionary, page 105:

     Squire: A species of animal belonging to the aldermanic genus. Authors are not exactly agreed what constitutes the generic difference betwixt squireens (the Irish abbreviation for squire), and the next inferior order of bipeds. The Liverpool squiry are distinguished from the mobility of the town by the former selling a hundred weight and the latter a pound weight of tobacco.

References

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Squiry”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IX, Part 1 (Si–St), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 751, column 1.