on the square
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
honest and fair in all dealings
Literally: in the shape of a square
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Oh, if that girl's been chucked out of her house, she's been there then all the week then?
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on the square” mean?
honest and fair in all dealings Literally: in the shape of a square
Is “on the square” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.