square peg in a round hole

UK/skwɛə ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhəʊl/US/skwɛəɹ ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhoʊl/

square peg in a round hole noun: someone or something that does not fit well or at all in a certain setting; a misfit; hence, someone or something that will not succeed in an endeavour, except possibly with much effort and force.

Image: deandisalvo, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

square peg in a round hole (plural square pegs in round holes)

(idiomatic) Someone or something that does not fit well or at all in a certain setting; a misfit; hence, someone or something that will not succeed in an endeavour, except possibly with much effort and force.
- ["]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...[1873, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XXI, in Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II, page 352
- 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.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LIV, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 282
Synonyms:

like a fish out of water

square peg in a round hole meaning in Vietnamese

square peg in a round hole in Vietnamese

someone or something that does not fit well or at all in a certain setting: râu ông nọ cắm cằm bà kia

Synonyms of square peg in a round hole

like a fish out of water

Forms of square peg in a round hole

plural	square pegs in round holes

Origin of square peg in a round hole

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.

Words that rhyme with square peg in a round hole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about square peg in a round hole

What does square peg in a round hole mean?: Square peg in a round hole means someone or something that does not fit well or at all in a certain setting; a misfit; hence, someone or something that will not succeed in an endeavour, except possibly with much effort and force.
What is square peg in a round hole in Vietnamese?: Square peg in a round hole in Vietnamese is râu ông nọ cắm cằm bà kia. See Square peg in a round hole meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is square peg in a round hole?: Square peg in a round hole is a noun.
How do you pronounce square peg in a round hole?: Square peg in a round hole is pronounced /skwɛə ˌpɛɡ ɪn‿ə ɹaʊnd ˈhəʊl/ (UK).
What is the plural of square peg in a round hole?: The plural of square peg in a round hole is square pegs in round holes.

Words near square peg in a round hole in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: square peg in a round hole (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-square peg in a round hole.ogg.

Cite this entry: “square peg in a round hole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/square_peg_in_a_round_hole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.