Also 7 squable, squabel, scwable. [prob. imitative: cf. next and Sw. dial. sqvabbel.] A wrangle, dispute, brawl; a petty quarrel.
1602. How Chuse Good Wife, A iv b. Hoping Mistresse you will passe ouer all these Iarres and squabels in good health.
a. 1652. Brome, Mad Couple, II. i. I … have undersold a parcell of the best Commodities my husband had. And should hee know’t wee should have such a scwable.
1690. C. Nesse, Hist. & Myst. O. & N. Test., I. 367. Whom possibly in some rude squabble ye have kill’d.
1748. H. Walpole, Corr. (1846), II. 208. Except elections, and such tiresome squabbles,… it is all harmony.
1788. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 440. The squabbles, in which the pride, the dissipations, and the tyranny of kings, keep this hemisphere constantly embroiled.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Ireland, i. 8. The disputes … became so virulent that the agent could get no rest from squabbles and complaints.
1874. Green, Short Hist., vii. 353. Politics were dying down into the squabbles of a knot of nobles.
