_squat_

_squat_

Verb.

Pronunciation: skwɒt.

Preterite tense, preterite participle: squatted; present participle: squatting.

Etymology: from Old French esquatir, esquater, from es- (= ex-) + quatir (= to beat or press down). Quatir is derived from Latin coactus, preterite participle of cogere (= to press together, force), which is analysed into co- (= together) prefixed to agere (= to drive).

It is dated from the beginning of 1300.

Transitively: 1. (Literal acceptation, now obsolete) to flatten; to beat or press down; to crush.

2. To cause (a person or another animal) to squat; to put into a squatting attitude or posture; to sit (some one) with the legs upon the hams or heels, or with the legs in front of the rest of the body; to make to sit on one’s haunches; hence, to sit, seat.

Translation: accroupir, in French; hacer acuclillar, in Spanish; fare accoccolarsi, in Italian.

 […] he came to meet me, kissed me on both sides with all the ease of one, who receives an acquaintance just come out of the country, squatted me into a fauteuil, begun to talk of the town.

Thomas Gray… The Works of Gray

-) Chiefly reflexive:

[…] they gained admittance to the hut. The men creeping in first, squatted themselves directly in front of the women, all holding out the small piece of seal-skin to allow the heat to reach their bodies.

Charles Wilkes… United States Exploring Expedition

[…] we having hobbled our horses, they squatted themselves on the ground to skin their opossum which they then brought to be roasted.

William Kingston… Adventures and other Stories

3. To occupy (an uninhabited building) as a squatter; this is, illegally, without being entitled, or permitted, to occupy it.

There were always empty places in the Buildings; people squatted them and got evicted and moved into another empty flat while someone else squatted the one they'd just left.

Carol Birch… Life in the palace, 1988

 […] to evict the residents of the remaining squatted houses.

Michael Smith… Marginal Spaces

4. To house (someone) as a squatter in an uninhabited building; to help (someone) occupy an uninhabited place, without right nor permission to do so.

 […] we piled her belongings into a truck and squatted the family in a vacant house, owned by a landlord. There were not many vacant houses, but that was no bother either.

Nell McCafferty… Nell, 2004

Intransitively: 1. (The subject being an hare) to sit close to the ground; to cower.

-) The verb connotes sometimes that the hare hides in a crouching attitude, to escape pursuers.

The hare seems to have more various arts and instincts to escape its pursuers, by doubling, squatting, and winding.

Oliver Goldsmith… The Earth…

[…] the hare squatted unconcerned, or hopped at leisure from field to wood.

James Payn… Halves

2. (The subject being other animal than an hare) to sit close to the ground; to cower, in the manner of a hare.

Dogs shew what may be fairly called a sense of humour, as distinct from mere play; if a bit of stick or other such object be thrown to one, he will often carry it away for a short distance; and then squatting down with it on the ground close before him, will wait until his master comes quite close to take it away.

Charles Darwin… The Descent of Man…

[The lion] suddenly squatted, evidently intending to spring upon me. ‘Nay, old fellow’, I muttered to myself, ‘if that's the ticket, I will be even with you’.

Carl Andersson… The Okavango River, 1861

3. (The subject being human) to sit close to the ground; to cower, in the manner of a hare. Hence: to sit with the legs upon the hams or heels; to sit on one’s haunches, with the legs vertically in front of the rest of the body; to be in a crouching attitude. Hence, abusively: to sit in any other manner.

Translation: acuclillarse, in Spanish; s’accroupir, in French; accoccolarsi, in Italian.

Equivalent periphrases: to bend the knees, sit on the heel.

Antonym: to stand.

[…] we saw the big backside of a woman, who was half standing, half squatting, a stream of piss falling in front of her…

Walter… My Secret Life

Never does a woman look sweeter, than when squatting with clothes well off her thighs…

Walter… My Secret Life

[Tuck], a position in which the skier squats forward and holds his ski poles under his arms and parallel to the ground that is usually used to minimize wind resistance in downhill racing.

Webster's Sports Dict. 1976

-) With the prepositions on or upon + noun of the base upon which one sits (the ground, hams, etc.)

The little black lass rose from the floor where she had squatted on her haunches after washing.

Walter… My Secret Life

-) With the adverb down, which is rather redundant:

We both desired to see women piddling, though both must have before seen them at it often enough. Walking near the market-town with him, just at the outskirts, and looking up a side-road, we saw a pedlar woman squat down and piss.

Walter… My Secret Life

-) The Preterite participle may be used predicatively:

I found him squatted on the bare floor, with no furniture in the room.

Harry Kemp… Tramping on Life

4. (In Weight-lifting) to squat while lifting a weight.

When we finally began squatting, we did a few warm-up sets to get our bodies accustomed to the movement.

John Hansen… Natural bodybuilding, 2005

-) With the preposition with + a complement denoting the weight:

… who has squatted with 450 pounds on her back…

Bob Goldman, P. Bush, R. Klatz… Death in the locker room

Power lifting champions weighing 1 14 and 123 pounds have squatted with more than 400 pounds, and middle- weights of 165 pounds (the best in the world, of course) have done squats with weights in the 500 to 600 pound range.

Jim Murray… Inside weight lifting… 1977

On our second set, we squatted with 225 pounds for 10 reps.

John Hansen… Natural bodybuilding, 2005

-) It may also be construed with an adverbial accusative denotative of the weight or the number of times that a squatting is made:

As a power lifter, he bench-pressed 560 pounds, squatted 820 pounds.

Ric Flair – K. Greenberg – Mark Madden… Ric Flair

Some heavyweight men can squat over 400 pounds.

Rowing News, Vol. 11

5. (The subject: one or more persons) to settle upon uncultivated or unoccupied land, without legal title and without the payment of rent; to occupy illegally or informally a land, in order to the establishment there of an abode, or to its cultivation.

People whose lore was of field and woods rather than of such abstract matters as authorization, survey, and filing, simply built a house, cleared some land, planted crops, and marked their corners […]. Some squatted for lack of any legal entitlement, other because they were far from the capitals where the transactions might be formalized.

Edward Price… Dividing the Land

[Immigrants] seeing the abundance of vacant land, they often squatted and soon claimed the land by virtue of the improvements they had made.

Edward Price… Dividing the Land

[…] those who had “squatted” for years on land whose owners were unknown…

Roy Rosenzweig – E. Blackmar… The Park and the People

-) With the prepositions on or upon + word of the land:

Squatters wanted special consideration to purchase the land they squatted on when it came up for sale.

John O’Sullivan – E. Keuchel… American Economic History

6. (The subject: someone; especially an homeless person) to occupy illegally an uninhabited or derelict building; to house oneself in an untenanted habitable structure without right to do so, as a squatter.

We helped quite a lot of women squat, […] we used to break into houses and things for them.

Sarah Green… Urban Amazons

Sam formerly had lived in this house. More accurately Sam had squatted in this house. Sam had not owned it. Sam had not paid rent. Sam simply had claimed the house one day by tearing the plywood from a boarded window and moving in.

Paul Leonard… Music of a Thousand Hammers

Words derived from SQUAT: squat (n.), squat (adj.), squatly, squatment, squatness, squattage, squatter, squatting (noun, adj.), squattily, squatty, squattingly, squattish, squattle, squattocracy, squattocratic, squatty, a-squat.