Results of an experimental and numerical study of a turbulent free jet of air from a sharp‐edged square slot are presented. The jet was treated as elliptic in the numerical study that predicted mean streamwise velocity, mean static pressure, and turbulence kinetic energy distributions. The experimental results include the mean velocity, the turbulent normal and shearing stresses obtained with hot‐wire anemometry, and the mean static pressure acquired with a pitot‐static tube in conjunction with a pressure transducer. The experimental results reveal the existence of pronounced mean streamwise velocity off‐center peaks in the very near field, where positive mean static pressures were also found. Furthermore, the square jet is found to spread significantly faster in the near flow field than a jet from a round slot that has the same exit area as the square slot under identical test conditions. The general agreement between experimental results and numerical predictions is relatively good.