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squash

noun
/skwɒʃ/UK/skwɔʃ/US/skwɑʃ/

Etymology

From Middle English squachen, squatchen, from Old French esquacher, escachier, from Vulgar Latin *excoāctiāre, from Latin ex + coāctāre. Probably influenced by Middle English quashen, quassen, from Old French esquasser, escasser (“to crush, shatter, destroy, break”), from Vulgar Latin *exquassare, from Latin ex- + quassare (“to shatter”) (see quash).

  1. derived from ex
  2. derived from *excoāctiāre✻
  3. derived from esquacher
  4. inherited from squachen

Definitions

  1. A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.

    • She plays squash every Saturday.
    • Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.
    • The bat, as a racquet used to be called, is the chief tool of the squash tradesman.

  2. A non-alcoholic drink made from a fruit-based concentrate diluted with water or milk.

    • Sure. I pour hot squash all over myself and we all have a good chuckle. Everyone except Muggins here.
    • When I'm thirsty I drink squash; it tastes much nicer than plain water.

  3. A place or a situation where people have limited space to move.

    • It's a bit of a squash in this small room.
  4. ›+ 14 more definitions

    1. A preparation made by placing material on a slide (flat, rectangular piece of glass),…

      A preparation made by placing material on a slide (flat, rectangular piece of glass), covering it and applying pressure.

    2. Something soft and easily crushed

      Something soft and easily crushed; especially, an unripe pod of peas.

    3. Something unripe or soft.

    4. A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body

      A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also, a shock of soft bodies.

    5. An extremely one-sided, usually short, match.

      • It was one of the most shocking WWE title matches ever witnessed, and effectively a 20-minute squash match as Brock Lesnar "conquered" his opponent.

    6. To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass

      To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.

    7. To compress or restrict (oneself) into a small space

      To compress or restrict (oneself) into a small space; to squeeze.

      • Somehow, she squashed all her books into her backpack, which was now too heavy to carry.
      • We all managed to squash into Mum's tiny car.

    8. To suppress

      To suppress; to force into submission.

      • A somewhat popular myth about the Whiskey Rebellion is that Washington personally led the troops into western Pennsylvania and squashed the rebellion.

    9. The sound of something relatively heavy splashing or squelching into water.

      • […] rain, too, had lately fallen, and had decidedly not evaporated, since, at every step, I went squash! squash! up to the tops of my boots, and many times very extent, stretching to the eastward, […]
      • […] to catch all the rain […]; my boots went squash, squash, as I turned on to the high road, […]
      • 1883, May 5 […] The words had only left his mouth when his feet slipped from under him, and with a dull, sickening thud, he went squash! into the water, waist-deep. We made our way to bed in a silence that was painful.

    10. A plant and its fruit of any of a few species of the genus Cucurbita, or gourd kind.

    11. Any other similar-looking plant of other genera.

    12. The edible or decorative fruit of these plants, or this fruit prepared as a dish.

      • We ate squash and green beans.

    13. Muskrat.

      • The squash is a four-footed beast, bigger than a cat.

    14. A surname

The neighborhood

Derived

Des Moines squash, orange squash, pepper squash, squanter-squash, squashable, squash ball, squash court, squash player, squash racket, squash racquets, squash shot, squash tennis, squashability, squashberry, squashee, squash the beef, squash up, squelch, squish, unsquash, wash and squash, squashy, acorn squash, Arikara squash, banana squash, black seed squash, button squash, custard squash, egg squash, gem squash, guinea squash, Hubbard squash, Japanese squash, Lakota squash, mango squash, Marblehead squash, marrow squash, onion squash, opo squash, pattypan squash · +16 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for squash. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA