# squish

Pronunciation: say "SKWISH" /skwɪʃ/

## Verb

1. To squeeze, press, or crush something soft or moist, or to be squeezed, pressed, or crushed in this way, sometimes into a smaller space. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To press or squeeze something soft so it gets flatter or out of shape, or to be pressed like this.
   - _Try not to squish the tomatoes when you pack the grocery bags._
   - _We squished four suitcases and a cooler into the trunk._

## Noun

2. The sound or action of something being squeezed or crushed, especially something moist.
   - Simple: The sound or act of pressing or crushing something, often something wet.
   - _Each step across the flooded lawn ended in a cold squish._
   - _With a wet squish, the overripe tomato burst in his hand._
3. 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. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A strong wish to be close friends with someone, with no romance involved, or that person.
   - _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._
4. An insulting name for a person with moderate political views. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A rude name for someone whose political views are in the middle.
   - _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._

## Noun

5. Marmalade, the preserve made from citrus fruit and its peel. *(archaic, UK)*
   - Simple: Marmalade, a sweet jam made from oranges or similar fruit.

## Origin

**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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/squish (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).