squeezing

Pluralsqueezings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of squeeze.

   Squeezing the lemon released a burst of fresh juice.

   The packed crowd was squeezing toward the only open door.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, from pressing fruit to the figurative pressure of burdens and taxes. Most uses take an object (squeezing a lemon, squeezing a friend tight), but fitting into a tight space goes both ways: squeezing into a seat, or squeezing a suitcase into the trunk. When it names the act itself, it shades into the noun for pressing.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of pressing or compressing something firmly.

   The constant squeezing of the cushion left it misshapen.

   Repeated squeezing of the clay made it soft and easy to shape.

   Similarpressing, compression

   Note

   Usually an uncountable act, but it can be counted when each press is a distinct movement. Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt's Canine Massage (2004) lists muscle squeezings beside picking-ups, kneadings and effleurages, as named strokes in a sequence. In that technical register the plural is natural: a massage is made of squeezings, not of squeezing.

3. 3
   nouncountableplural

   The matter forced out by pressure; the dregs that remain after pressing.

   The cook saved the final squeezing of the fruit for the sauce.

   Workers collected the squeezings left over after the oil was extracted.

   Similarpressing, dregs, residue

   Note

   Here the word names the stuff, not the act, and it usually takes the plural: the squeezings of a sponge, the squeezings left after pressing oil. The London Lancet of 1849 describes such squeezings being evaporated and ignited in a chemical test. Because the act of pressing can also be counted, squeezings is ambiguous on its own. If the squeezings can be collected or poured, it means the residue.

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