square peg in a round hole
/skwɛəɹ ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhoʊl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.43 in modern English
37
Scrabble Score
21
Letters
2
Syllables
14
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "["]Now, your son's case is really your case—you see it through the medium of your likings and dislikings—and insist upon forcing a square peg into a round hole, because in a round hole you, being a round peg, feel tight and comfortable. Now I call that irrational." / "I don't see why my son has any right to fancy himself a square peg," said the farmer, doggedly, "when his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, have been round pegs; and it is agin' nature for any creature not to take after its own kind.["]"
- "To these people, native and European, he was a queer fish, but they were used to queer fish, and they took him for granted; […] In England and France he was the square peg in the round hole, but here the holes were any sort of shape, and no sort of peg was quite amiss."
- "It is almost as if you have guidelines for putting a square peg into a square hole, but we are trying to apply those same guidelines to put a square peg into a round hole."
- "As they say, you can't fit a square peg in a round hole. If your boss is like that round hole and you are that square peg, you aren't going to fit in unless you re-shape your edges. If you can't do that, then look for that square hole where you will fit."
Etymology
Commonly associated with a shape sorter, a baby toy that consists of (often wooden) pegs that need to be inserted through holes in a box, using the hole that has the same shape as the peg. While all the shapes are of roughly equal size, each peg will only fit in the hole that has the same shape. Inserting a peg in a different hole would require either modifying or breaking the toy.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /skwɛəɹ ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhoʊl/
- British English: /skwɛə ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhəʊl/