square bracket meaning: definition, quotations

square bracket

nounalso spelled square-bracket

Either of a pair of symbols, [ ], used for various purposes, e.g. to enclose text inserted or replaced by an editor, and to indicate various mathematical operations.

We must, in short, employ a special bracket for operative relations ; and the square bracket is the most convenient. Hence [a + bβ] x denotes that a + bβ operates on x, and [φ]ⁿ denotes that φ operates on itself n - 1 times.1905, Royal Irish Academy, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, page 33:

Related terms: angle bracket, brace, bracket, curly bracket, lenticular bracket, parenthesis

square-bracket

verb

To enclose in square brackets.

Scotland's geographical location (Map 1), projecting northwest from the main land-mass of Europe, and its wide variety of habitats are the principal factors responsible for the diversity of the 449 species (excluding those square-bracketed – see Chapter 11) currently on the Scottish list.1986, Valerie M. Thom, “Scotland – its avifauna and geography”, in Birds in Scotland, London: T & AD Poyser, published 2011, →ISBN, page 15:
I have square-bracketed the ‘t’ of ‘this’ because, as Loxley and his co-authors note, the additional letter is sanctioned by the Sibbald transcript of Drummond's notes, ‘Modern editors,’ they write, ‘amend “this” to “his”’, following a later printed text of the ‘Conversations’.⁷¹2018, Michael Bath, “Alexander Seton's Suburban Villa: Neostoical Emblems and United Nations”, in Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings (Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature; 28), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 170: