squash

Meanings

Noun

• A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
• A soft drink made from a fruit-based concentrate diluted with water.
• A place or a situation where people have limited space to move.
• A preparation made by placing material on a slide , covering it and applying pressure.
• Something soft and easily crushed; especially, an unripe pod of peas.
• Something unripe or soft.
• A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also, a shock of soft bodies.
• An extremely one-sided, usually short, match.
• A plant and its fruit of any of a few species of the genus Cucurbita, or gourd kind.
• Any other similar-looking plant of other genera.
• The edible or decorative fruit of these plants, or this fruit prepared as a dish.
• Muskrat.

Verb

• To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.
• To compress or restrict (oneself) into a small space; to squeeze.
• To suppress; to force into submission.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• pumpkin

Origin

• 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, from Vulgar Latin *exquassare, from Latin ex- + quassare (see quash).
• Shortening of Narragansett askutasquash ("[a vegetable] eaten green (or raw)"), from askut + asquash.