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squish

SKWISH/skwɪʃ/

Verbsquishes, squishing, squished

Noun pluralsquishes

5 meanings of squish

Practice

  1. 1
    verbcolloquialtransitive
    To squeeze, press, or crush something soft or moist, or to be squeezed, pressed, or crushed in this way, sometimes into a smaller space.

    Try not to squish the tomatoes when you pack the grocery bags.

    We squished four suitcases and a cooler into the trunk.

    UsageOften squish things into a space, or squish something flat.

    Similarsquash, squeeze, crush, mash, cram

  2. 2
    nouncountable
    The sound or action of something being squeezed or crushed, especially something moist.

    Each step across the flooded lawn ended in a cold squish.

    With a wet squish, the overripe tomato burst in his hand.

    Similarsquelch

  3. 3
    friend crushnounslangcountable
    A platonic crush: an intense, non-romantic and generally non-sexual infatuation with someone one is not dating, or the person who is its object.

    It's not romantic at all. I just have a huge squish on my new coworker and want her to like me.

    He finally worked up the nerve to invite his squish, a guy from his climbing gym, out for coffee as friends.

    UsageUsed like crush: have a squish on someone.

    Note

    The friendly sense was built on the model of crush, and perhaps smash, words that name both a kind of squeezing and a kind of attraction. A word already meaning to squeeze was simply put to the same double use.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • The platonic-attraction sense was formed by analogy with crush and possibly smash, both having compression and attraction senses. en.wiktionary.org
    • Squish already had the physical meaning 'to squeeze' before acquiring its attraction sense. en.wiktionary.org

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    nounderogatorycolloquialcountable
    An insulting name for a person with moderate political views.

    Party activists vowed to vote out every squish who had backed the compromise bill.

    The talk-radio host spent the afternoon mocking the senator's allies as squishes.

    Similarmoderate

    Note

    Conservatives aim this insult at moderates in their own ranks. Time reported in 2009 that some thought the party better off 'without squishes like Specter', and in 2022 a super PAC backing Vance in Ohio called Josh Mandel 'another failed career politician squish'. A politician may call themselves a moderate with pride, but squish is a label only opponents pin on, so using it announces the speaker's side.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Conservatives use the insult for moderates within their party. time.com
    • Time published the quoted wording in 2009. time.com
    • The 2022 quotation targeted Josh Mandel in an Ohio advertisement supporting Vance. en.wiktionary.org
  2. 5
    orange jamnounarchaicUKuncountable
    Marmalade, the preserve made from citrus fruit and its peel.
    Note

    The nickname belonged to British family breakfasts and Oxford undergraduates. Belgravia in 1879 gives it as a household's name for the mother's home-made marmalade, and The Sphere in 1905 uses it for Frank Cooper's Oxford marmalade, once known mainly to undergraduates and by then famous worldwide. Even then writers set the word in quotation marks, as an insider's term.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–2, 4–5

This looks like an altered form of squash, shaped by the obsolete squiss ("to squeeze"). Scots squische and squies ("to crush, squeeze") are cognates, and French esquicher, which comes from Old Occitan esquichar ("to squish, squeeze"), is comparable.

Meaning 3

Crush and possibly smash, which can each name a kind of squeezing as well as a kind of attraction, served as models for the word. Its earliest recorded use in this sense may date from 1999. In 2007 Raisin, a user on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network forums, coined or recoined it to mean "a milder synonym for the word crush." A 1997 episode of the animated series Aaahh!!! Real Monsters had already used the term in a similar sense, though the 2007 (re)coining seems to have been independent.