Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A square or cube.
  • noun An approximately square or cubic area, space, or object.
  • noun Zoology A bone or cartilaginous structure of the skull, joining the upper and lower jaws in birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians.
  • adjective Having four sides and four angles; square or rectangular.
  • adjective Zoology Of or being the quadrate bone or cartilage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To square; adjust; trim, as a gun on its carriage.
  • To divide into four equal parts: quarter.
  • To square; fit; suit; agree: followed by with.
  • noun A quarter; a quadrant.
  • Having four equal and parallel sides; square; arranged in a square; four-sided.
  • Square by being the product of a number multiplied into itself.
  • Square, as typifying justice according to the Pythagoreans; well-balanced.
  • Fitted; suited; applicable.
  • In heraldry, of square form, or having square corners: thus, a cross quadrate in the center has four rectangular projections in its reëntrant angles. Also quarter-angled.
  • The quadratus lumborum, or square muscle of the loins, lying on each side of the lumbar region, between the lower ribs and the pelvis.
  • The square muscle of the chin, which draws down the lower lip: commonly called depressor labii inferioris.
  • The quadratus nictitantis, one of the two muscles (the other being the pyramidal) on the back of the eyeball of birds, etc., subserving the movements of the nictitating membrane, or third eyelid. See third cut under eye.
  • noun A plane figure with four equal sides and four equal angles; a square.
  • noun In astrology, an aspect of two heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other ninety degrees, or the quarter of a circle; quartile.
  • noun In zoology and anatomy: The os quadratum, or quadrate bone (see I.); the os pedicellatum, or pedicellate bone; the suspensorium, or suspender bone of the mandible, or that one which is in connection with the lower jaw, in vertebrates below mammals.
  • noun Any quadrate muscle.
  • noun In musical notation: Same as natural, ♮: so called because derived from B quadratum (which see, under B).
  • noun Same as breve, 1.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Archaic To square; to agree; to suit; to correspond; -- followed by with.
  • noun (Geom.) A plane surface with four equal sides and four right angles; a square; hence, figuratively, anything having the outline of a square.
  • noun (Astrol.) An aspect of the heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other 90°, or the quarter of a circle; quartile. See the Note under Aspect, 6.
  • noun (Anat.) The quadrate bone.
  • adjective Having four equal sides, the opposite sides parallel, and four right angles; square.
  • adjective Produced by multiplying a number by itself; square.
  • adjective Archaic Square; even; balanced; equal; exact.
  • adjective Archaic Squared; suited; correspondent.
  • adjective (Anat.) a bone between the base of the lower jaw and the skull in most vertebrates below the mammals. In reptiles and birds it articulates the lower jaw with the skull; in mammals it is represented by the malleus or incus.
  • transitive verb To adjust (a gun) on its carriage; also, to train (a gun) for horizontal firing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having four equal sides, the opposite sides parallel, and four right angles; square.
  • adjective Produced by multiplying a number by itself; square.
  • adjective archaic Square; even; balanced; equal; exact.
  • adjective archaic Squared; suited; correspondent.
  • noun geometry A plane surface with four equal sides and four right angles; a square; hence, figuratively, anything having the outline of a square.
  • noun astrology An aspect of the heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other 90°, or the quarter of a circle; quartile.
  • noun anatomy The quadrate bone.
  • verb archaic, transitive To adjust (a gun) on its carriage.
  • verb archaic, transitive To train (a gun) for horizontal firing.
  • verb archaic, transitive, intransitive To square (in various senses).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a cubelike object
  • adjective having four sides and four angles
  • noun a square-shaped object

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English quadrat, something square, from Latin quadrātum, from neuter past participle of quadrāre, to make square, from quadrum, square; see kwetwer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French quadrat ("a square"), from Latin quadratus ("square"), past participle of quadrare ("to make four-cornered, square, put in order, intransitive be square"), from quadra ("a square"), later quadrus ("square"), from quattuor ("four").

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Examples

  • Its upper border blends with the anterior and posterior ligaments of the elbow, while from its lower border a thin loose membrane passes to be attached to the neck of the radius; a thickened band which extends from the inferior border of the annular ligament below the radial notch to the neck of the radius is known as the quadrate ligament.

    III. Syndesmology. 6e. Radioulnar Articulation 1918

  • The cartilaginous bar from the palato-pterygoid to the otic capsule is called the quadrate, and at the point of junction, at the postero-ventral angle of the palato-pterygoid, articulates with the cartilaginous bar which is destined to form the substratum of the lower jaw -- Meckel's cartilage (M.c. in Figure 8, I.).

    Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata 1906

  • He thought he could show that the skeletal structures (lower jaw, "quadrate," and hyoid) of the first two arches were formed in the serous layer, just like true ribs, and like them in close connection with the vertebral skeletal axis.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • Hornbills are also unusual in possessing a unique ligament – the quadratomandibular ligament – that connects the body of the quadrate with the inside surface of the lower jaw.

    Archive 2006-08-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • Hornbills are also unusual in possessing a unique ligament – the quadratomandibular ligament – that connects the body of the quadrate with the inside surface of the lower jaw.

    Bucorvids: post-Cretaceous maniraptorans on the savannah Darren Naish 2006

  • Further, no man can judge another, because no man knows himself; for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us.

    Religio Medici 2007

  • Video musicale colorato e variegato, con auto dalle ruote quadrate, diggei e rapimenti alieni.

    No Fat Clips!!! : DJ YODA – Wheels 2006

  • The earliest therapsids show the typical reptilian type of jaw joint, with the articular bone in the jaw firmly attached to the quadrate bone in the skull.

    What a difference a day makes. - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • So malleus and the incus, or the hammer and the anvil, are actually the quadrate and the articular that used to be in the jaw joint, and now they are hooked up to the stapes here of the ear.

    What a difference a day makes. - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • I, here are metaphysics surely; but they are all on your side, who advance an abstruse hypothesis, which can never be made intelligible, nor quadrate with any particular instance or illustration.

    An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals 2006

Comments

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  • "'...autopsy showed an enlarged quadrate lobe studded with yellow nodules the size of a pea. He calls it Botany Bay liver, and it is this... that I fear our patient may have caught.'"

    --O'Brian, The Truelove, 28

    March 10, 2008