[Prob. imitative.]
† 1. intr. ? To be fussily busy. Obs.
1593. G. Harvey, New Letter, Wks. (Grosart), I. 282. I haue not bene squattering at my papers for nothing, and … I can dawbe with my incke like none of the Muses.
† 2. = SQUITTER v. 2. Obs.–0
1598. Florio, Squaccarare, to squatter, to squirt or lash it out behind after a purgation.
1611. Cotgr., Aller long, to haue a squirt, to squatter out behind.
† 3. trans. To scatter, disperse, spill. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Escarter, to sheed, squatter, throw about, or abroad. Ibid., Espancher, to squatter, spill, sheed, or poure out disorderedly, or in hast.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. xxvii. To some others he … squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs.
4. intr. To fly or run, to struggle along, to make one’s way, among water or wet with much splashing or flapping. Const. away, out of, through, etc.
1785. Burns, Address to Deil, viii. Awa ye squatter’d, like a drake, On whistling wings.
1790. A. Wilson, Poems & Lit. Prose (1876), II. 103. Three years thro’ muirs an’ bogs I’ve squattert.
1825. Scott, Lett., in Lockhart (1839), VII. 354. I climbed Bennarty like a wild goat,… and squattered through your drains like a wild duck.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xxv. A little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without leave.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., ii. Where the wild ducks squatter up from among the white water lilies.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. v. 143. He pitched the boy … into the canal,… but I believe the lad squattered to the bank without help.
b. To flutter, flap or struggle among water or soft mud.
1808. Jamieson, To Squatter, to flutter in water, as a wild duck, &c.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, i. A six-pound shot drove our boat into staves, and all hands were the next moment squattering in the water.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 259. We … were all soon squattering about on our own account in the elephant bath.
