square one

1. 1.

   the situation in which you begin an endeavor and to which you return if your efforts fail

   “the police are now back at square one after having arrested and released 27 men”

   “she has tried to diet but always ends up back at square one”

   Broadersituation

Questions about square one

What does square one mean?

square one means "the situation in which you begin an endeavor and to which you return if your efforts fail".

Is square one a common word?

square one is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.