Mystery Word Game: Square Wave with Dots

Question

My friends and I were playing a game recently in which, for each round, four of the players were given a word of which they each had to give a rough description to the fifth player. The guessing player would gain a point if they got the word correct.

It came to my turn to be the guesser and the descriptions my friends gave for the word were as follows:

Alan: It's a square with a pair of strips passing through it.
Brenda: I would say it's more like a repeating square wave but one that is crashing.
Catherine: I wouldn't say it's the waves themselves but it's what's just above, close to land.
Daniel: I would say they are more like ridges than waves, sometimes interspersed with dots.

Their descriptions seemed completely disparate and I couldn't make sense of them, which worried me quite a bit.

What word were my friends describing?
Please explain each description in your answer.

Hint (in light of Tom's excellent answer)

Once the word had been revealed to me, I realised it could also mean something into which I had just gotten myself.

Answer 1

A second plucky attempt is the word:

fret

It's a square with a pair of strips passing through it.

A fret which is the heraldic symbol of a mascle (lozenge) with two bendlets (diagonal stripes)

I would say it's more like a repeating square wave but one that is crashing.

A fret pattern has repeated motifs of straight lines and right angles.

I wouldn't say it's the waves themselves but it's what's just above, close to land.

A sea fret is a cold sea fog, close to shore.

I would say they are more like ridges than waves, sometimes interspersed with dots.

A fret is a raised ridge on the neck of a stringed instrument. Marker dots are often placed on the face of a guitar's fretboard to indicate harmonic points of the string.

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First try: An opening attempt is the word:

breaker.

A: It's a square with a pair of strips passing through it.

One symbol for a (circuit) breaker is a square with two lines:

B: I would say it's more like a repeating square wave but one that is crashing.

Another, more complicated one is this circuit breaker



or the percussion hammer for demolishing, which repeatedly crashes on/off against concrete.

C: I wouldn't say it's the waves themselves but it's what's just above, close to land.

breaker - a raised part of the seabed near the shore, against which waves break.

D: I would say they are more like ridges than waves, sometimes interspersed with dots.

breaker - a ridge-like wave near the shore with amplitude at a critical level, popular with surfers which look the dots from a distance?