SQUASH • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Squash

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/skwɑʃ/ Listen

noun

Squash n. (Zool.) An American animal allied to the weasel. (Obs.)

Squash n. (Bot.) A plant and its fruit of the genus Cucurbita, or gourd kind. Note: The species are much confused. The long-neck squash is called Cucurbita verrucosa, the Barbary or China squash, Cucurbita moschata, and the great winter squash, Cucurbita maxima, but the distinctions are not clear.

Squash beetle (Zool.), a small American beetle (Diabrotica vittata, syn. Galeruca vittata) which is often abundant and very injurious to the leaves of squash, cucumber, etc. It is striped with yellow and black. The name is applied also to other allied species.

Squash bug (Zool.), a large black American hemipterous insect (Coreus tristis syn. Anasa tristis) injurious to squash vines.

Squash n.

Something soft and easily crushed; especially, an unripe pod of pease. "Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 't is a peascod."

Hence, something unripe or soft; used in contempt. "This squash, this gentleman."

A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also, a shock of soft bodies. "My fall was stopped by a terrible squash."

A game much like rackets, played in a walled court with soft rubber balls and bats like tennis rackets; called also squash rackets.

verb

Squash v. t. (past & past part. squashed; pres. part. squashing) To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.

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Etymology of 'Squash'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Squash" Quotes from Famous Books

... Pete, we can make out. What's the use of risking any more, though if we did need 'em, we'd get 'em. We'd only have to beat up the water-front, and volunteers! They'd come a-running, Bud, from every joint and dance-hall, enough to run a battleship—in no time, yes, sir. Why, Bud, even that squash-head of a piano-player would 'a' come if ...

— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... within these croupier types that makes them surround themselves with the aseptic immaculacy of iridium and glass. Their office was in a penthouse perched on the slanting roof shakes of the casino. It was big as a squash court, and as high and as square. Every wall was glass. It couldn't have been in greater contrast to the contrived hominess of the casino if they'd thought about it for a year. Then, for the last twist, the furnishings were straight out of the old Southwest—Navajo ...

— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett

... declares Eleanor emphatically, addressing her parents. "I want to take you to Mrs. Mounteagle's party this afternoon. I am sure she won't mind, we are such great friends, and two more will make no difference in a tea and coffee, four-to-seven squash." ...

— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... Tonga has a small, open economy with a narrow export base in agricultural goods. Squash, coconuts, bananas, and vanilla beans are the main crops, and agricultural exports make up two-thirds of total exports. The country must import a high proportion of its food, mainly from New Zealand. Tourism is the second-largest source of hard currency earnings ...

— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... as she pulled me down to her bench and rubbed my back, "that Argentina is good country! Forty dollars lime squash by himself." She opened her purse, and poured out more gold. With it fell a cloth medallion, red letters on white flannel, "The Apostleship of Prayer in League with the Sacred ...

— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

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