1854. Dickens, Hard Times, xi. Wet through and through; with her feet squelching and squashing in her shoes whenever she moved.
1876. Collins, Public Schools [Harrow], 312. The gravel cut the leather case of the ball occasionally, as well as the hands and faces of those who scrambled over it in a squash . . . which Rugby men know as a 'scrummage' and Etonians as a 'rouge.'
1884. Harper's Mag., lxxviii. 80. It seemed churlish to pass him by without a sign, especially as he took off his squash of a hat to me.
1898. Nisbet, Sweet Sinner; vi. George Keath was a stalwart man . . . and the like of this music teacher he could have settled and squashed in half a minute.
3. (Harrow).—Racquets played with a soft india-rubber ball: the ball is also known as a squash.
Squat, subs. (colloquial).—1. A
short thick-set person. Squatty
(or squaddy) = lumpish, dumpy.
1881. J. Burroughs, Pepacton, iii. A few yards away stood another short, squatty hemlock, and I said my bees ought to be there.
2. (American Stock Exchange).—See quot.
1870. Medbery, Men and Mysteries of Wall St., 168. He extricated himself from serious difficulties by . . . what is known in the street as squatting. In other words, he dishonored his own contracts, and entered upon a lawsuit to cover his duplicity.
Squatter, subs. (old colloquial:
now general).—1. A settler on
public land without title or
license; hence (2) any domiciliary
usurper. Also (3) in Australia a
pastoral tenant of the Crown.
Whence squat, verb. = (1) to
settle on land without title: e.g.,
on a common, and (2) as in subs.
senses 2 and 3. Derivatives are
numerous: e.g., squattage = a
squatter's station; squattocracy
(squatterarchy or squatterdom)
= the world of squatters:
spec. rich landowners in pastoral
districts: cf. Mobocracy, Cottonocracy,
Slaveocracy, &c.,
&c.
1829. Capt. Basil Hall, Trav. in N. Amer., II. 297. A wooding station owned by what is called a squatter.
1835. T. A. Murray, Evidence before Legislative Council of New South Wales on Police and Gaols. There are several parties of squatters in my neighbourhood. I detected, not long since, three men at one of their stations in the act of slaughtering one of my own cattle. I have strong reason to suspect that these people are, in general, illicit sellers of spirits.
1840. F. P. Labilliere, Early History of Victoria (1878), ii. 189. The Squatters of New South Wales, a class of persons whom it would be wrong to confound with those who bear the same name in America, . . . generally persons . . . who have taken unauthorized possession of land. Among the Squatters of New South Wales are the wealthiest of the land, occupying, with the permission of the Government, thousands and tens of thousands of acres.
1846. Hodgson, Reminisc., 118. English are the most numerous, then the Scotch, then the Irish amongst the squattocracy.
1854. Melbourne Morning Herald, 18 Feb., 4, 5. SOUATTOCRATIC IMPUDENCE [Title].
1861. McCombie, Australian Sketches, 128. Squatter was applied in the first instance to signify, as in America, such as erected huts on unsold land. It thus came to be applied to all who did not live on their own land, to whom the original and more expressive name of settler continued to be applied.
1868. Bonwick, John Batman, 94. Writes to another at a distance upon the subject of squatterdom.
1872. C. H. Eden, Wife and I, 59. The howl for the abolition of the squattocracy had not yet been fostered under the malign influence of short-sighted politicians.
1885. Campbell-Praed, Head Station, 35. The bloated squattocracy represents Australian Conservatism.
1890. Boldrewood, Squatter's Dream, iv. 42. He trusted to pass into the ranks of the squattocracy.
