Definitions

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

  • noun A constellation in the Southern Hemisphere within the Milky Way near Lupus and Ara.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A rule, measure, or norm.
  • noun A square for measuring right angles, used by carpenters, masons, and other artificers to make their work rectangular.
  • noun A pattern; a gage; a templet; a model.
  • noun The Square, a small southern constellation, introduced by Lacaille in the middle of the eighteenth century, between Vulpes and Ara. It was at first called Norma et regula; but the name is now abridged.

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

  • noun A norm; a principle or rule; a model; a standard.
  • noun A mason's or a carpenter's square or rule.
  • noun A templet or gauge.

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

  • proper noun astronomy An inconspicuous constellation of the southern sky, said to resemble a carpenter's square. It lies south of the constellations Scorpius and Centaurus.
  • proper noun A female given name.

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

  • noun a small constellation in the southern hemisphere near Lupus and Ara in the Milky Way

Etymologies

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

[Latin norma, carpenter's square; see gnō- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined name of an imaginary Celtic priestess in Bellini's opera Norma (1831). Sometimes explained as Latin norma ("pattern, model"), or as a feminine form of Norman

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