squireen

English

Etymology

From squire + anglicized form of Irish -ín, diminutive suffix.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /skwaɪəˈɹiːn/
  • (US) enPR: skwī-rēnʹ, IPA(key): /skwaɪˈɹiːn/

Noun

squireen (plural squireens)

  1. (originally Ireland) A minor squire; a small landowner.
    • 1917, William Francis Thomas Butler, Confiscation in Irish history, page 248:
      Probably no other country could produce such a degraded type as the squireen or buckeen, the drunken, gambling, profligate descendant of the Cromwellian or Williamite settler.
    • 1983, Prys Morgan, “From a Death to a View”, in The Invention of Tradition:
      About 1730 the poet and squireen Huw Hughes wrote to the great scholar Lewis Morris that all the defenders of the old language had gone to sleep.
    • 1990, Roy Porter, English Society in the 18th Century, Penguin, published 1991, page 234:
      By blending entertainment and instruction, the Spectator taught ease and affability to squireens and tradesmen with time on their hands, money in their pockets but little breeding.

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