Square peg in a round hole


"Square peg in a round hole" is an idiomatic expression which describes the unusual
individualist who could not fit into a niche of their society.
The metaphor was originated by Sydney Smith in "On the Conduct of the Understanding", one of a series of lectures on moral philosophy that he delivered at the Royal Institution in 1804–06:
The Oxford English Dictionary has as its earliest citation Albany Fonblanque, England under Seven Administrations, 1837, "Sir Robert Peel was a smooth round peg, in a sharp-cornered square hole, and Lord Lyndenurst is a rectangular square-cut peg, in a smooth round hole."

Uses in literature

The British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton published the metaphor in a late 19th-century book:

Music

"A Square Peg in a Round Hole" is the title song of the 1959 British war comedy film The Square Peg starring Norman Wisdom. The phrase is also used as the title of an album by Apparatjik.
Godley and Creme in their title "Wedding Bells" are singing:
"I'm like a square peg in a round hole
I don't belong here baby
don't need a fanfare or a drum roll
to tell you baby
I don't belong to you baby"

Contemporary examples

This idiomatic expression has proven to be quite durable into the 21st century. It is used in a range of contemporary circumstances, especially in business and public life. Illustrative examples include:
  • "We intend to show that Israel needs a security process as well as a peace process.... To continue with the old diplomatic approach would be like hammering square pegs into round holes." -- Dore Gold
  • "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." -- Gini Graham Scott in A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses: Dealing with Bullies, Idiots, Back-stabbers, and Other Managersfrom Hell.
  • "... relating back to the title of the panel session, square peg in a round hole; well, maybe, but sometimes you can force that peg in and make it stick. We seem to be somewhere between a feeling of cautious optimism and open-minded skepticism about the workability of disease management in fee-for-service Medicare. -- Bruce Steinwald, Director of Economics and Payment Issues in the Health Division at the U.S. General Accounting Office

Similar expressions in other languages

Sejong the Great of Korea commented, in 1443, that using Chinese characters for Korean was “like trying to fit a square handle into a round hole”. He subsequently developed the Hangul phonetic alphabet.
There is a Chinese idiom "方枘圆凿", or "方凿圆枘", that was originally derived from a line in the Verses of Chu (Chu ci) 楚辭), composed in the Warring States period, in which the poet Song Yu writes: "圆凿而方枘兮，吾固知其龃龉而难入。" The Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian and Tang Dynasty historian 司馬貞 used the same expression in their historical writings too. It is still widely used today to mean two things that don't fit together due to different qualities, characters or abilities.

Literal cases