Spunk-fencer, a lucifer-match seller.
Spunks, lucifer-matches.—Herefordshire; Scotland. Spunk, says Urry, in his MS. notes to Ray, “is the excrescency of some tree, of which they make a sort of tinder to light their pipes with.”
Spurt.—Old. See [SPIRT].
Squabby, flat, short and thick. From SQUAB, a sofa.
Square, honest; “on the SQUARE,” i.e., fair and strictly honest; “to turn SQUARE,” to reform, and get one’s living in an honest manner,—the opposite of “cross.” The expression is, in all probability, derived from the well-known masonic emblem the SQUARE, the symbol of evenness and rectitude.
“You must keep within the compass, and act upon the square with all mankind, for your masonry is but a dead letter if you do not habitually perform its reiterated injunctions.”—Oliver’s Lectures on Signs and Symbols, p. 190.
Square, “to be SQUARE with a man,” to be even with him, or to be revenged; “to SQUARE up to a man,” to offer to fight him. Shakspeare uses SQUARE in the sense of to quarrel.
Square cove, an honest man, as distinguished from “cross cove.”
Square moll, an honest woman, one who does not “batter.”