a. [f. SQUEEZE v.]

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  1.  Capable of being compressed or squeezed. Also transf.

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1813.  Sir W. W. Pepys, in Roberts, Mem. Han. More (1835), III. 398. One would like to keep it in squeezable order.

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1844.  Stephens, Bk. Farm, III. 1043. They must feel moist and clammy, and be squeezable in the hand.

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  b.  Impressionable; susceptible.

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1852.  Savage, R. Medlicott, I. I. v. 130. You are too versatile and too squeezable,… you take impressions too readily.

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  2.  Capable of being constrained or coerced to yield or grant something.

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1837.  Ann. Reg., Hist., 390/1. The ministers, at least, he regarded as squeezable commodities, out of which something good might, by compression, be extracted.

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1852.  W. Jerdan, Autobiog., II. i. 7. As unlucky and squeezable by their more cunning competitors … as the literary man.

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1884.  Manch. Exam., 23 Aug., 5/2. He hoped that China would be squeezable, and that the objects he had in view would be attained without war.

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  b.  esp. From which money may be extracted.

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1840.  Fraser’s Mag., XXI. 243. Not a farthing beyond what they could squeeze from any quarter squeezable.

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1880.  L. Oliphant, Land of Gilead, vi. 190. The result of their industry is only that they become more squeezable for taxes.

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  3.  Capable of being extracted by pressure.

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1843.  Tait’s Mag., X. 805/2. Their [the gentry’s] necessities compel them to exact the last penny squeezable out of the unfortunate tenantry.

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  Hence Squeezableness, = SQUEEZABILITY.

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1844.  Blackw. Mag., LV. 119. The issuing of that order would depend entirely on the strength or the necessity of the Minister: on his ‘squeezableness.’

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1871.  Standard, 12 April, 6. Mr. Gladstone’s ‘squeezableness.’

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