Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Squash?

\Squash\, n. A game much like rackets, played in a walled court with soft rubber balls and bats like tennis rackets.
\Squash\, n. [Cf. {Musquash}.] (Zo["o]l.) An American animal allied to the weasel. [Obs.] --Goldsmith.
\Squash\, n. [Massachusetts Indian asq, pl. asquash, raw, green, immaturate, applied to fruit and vegetables which were used when green, or without cooking; askutasquash vine apple.] (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, {C. moschata}, and the great winter squash, {C. maxima}, but the distinctions are not clear. {Squash beetle} (Zo["o]l.), a small American beetle ({Diabrotica, or 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} (Zo["o]l.), a large black American hemipterous insect ({Coreus, or Anasa, tristis}) injurious to squash vines.
\Squash\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Squashed}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Squashing}.] [OE. squashen, OF. escachier, esquachier, to squash, to crush, F. ['e]cacher, perhaps from (assumed) LL. excoacticare, fr. L. ex + coactare to constrain, from cogere, coactum, to compel. Cf. {Cogent}, {Squat}, v. i.] To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.
\Squash\, n. 1. 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. --Shak. 2. Hence, something unripe or soft; -- used in contempt. ``This squash, this gentleman.'' --Shak. 3. A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also, a shock of soft bodies. --Arbuthnot. My fall was stopped by a terrible squash. --Swift.