squirting

Pluralsquirtings

1. 1
   sprayingverb

   Present participle and gerund of squirt.

   Water was squirting from a crack in the garden hose.

   Squirting lemon juice over the fish just before serving brightens the flavor.

   Note

   Three patterns meet in the -ing form. The liquid can be the object (squirting lemon juice over the fish), the target can be, with with for the liquid (squirting a friend with a hose), or there can be no object at all, when the liquid does the moving itself: water was squirting from a crack in the hose.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An act in which liquid is forced out through a narrow opening in a quick stream.

   No amount of squirting with the hose would drive the raccoons out of the shed.

   The squirting of seawater from small holes in the sand showed us where the clams were buried.

   Similarspraying, spurting

   Note

   The noun is older than it looks, in use since the 14th century. In the plural it counts separate bursts, and it often comes with a word for how many or how freely: Caroline Graham's A Place of Safety has a foul room treated to liberal squirtings with a sickly sweet freshener.

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