[f. SQUEEZE v.]
1. One who squeezes, in various senses.
1611. Cotgr., Pressoireur, a pressor, strainer, squeezer of iuyce, or liquor, out of things.
1679. T. Jordan, Lond. in Luster, 16. In that Scene below, I saw a fellow carried in a throng of Squeezers, upon Men’s backs like a Pageant for the space of thirty Yards.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. xxxii. (1737), 136. Grinders and Squeezers of Livings.
1818. Blackw. Mag., III. 518. Item, 7 sitters, or rather squeezers, in the inside.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. 178. ‘Aye,’ rejoined the squeezer of lemons, ‘poor Sidney!’
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 466. The moulds … are kept dry … so that the squeezer can often separate his work from them readily.
1894. Daily News, 17 Feb., 5/4. Though the patrician ‘squeezers’ of the Coreans cannot apparently be ‘mended’ [etc.].
2. † a. A crowded assembly; a squeeze. Obs.–1
1756. Mrs. F. Brooke, Old Maid, No. 16. 128. The day after my arrival, I went to the countess of ——s Squeezer, where I was sure of meeting her.
b. slang. The hangman’s rope; the noose.
1836. F. Mahony, Rel. Father Prout, II. 115. For Larry was always the lad, When a friend was condemned to the squeezer.
c. A squeezing pressure.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XII. 101. Give the lemons a squeezer.
3. A mechanical device or apparatus, an implement, by which pressure can be applied. Also attrib.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 133. The squeezing rollers or squeezers, for discharging the greater part of the water from the yarns and goods in the process of bleaching. Ibid., 233. The piece is drawn through by a pair of squeezer cylinders at the end of the trough.
1846. Holtzapffel, Turning, II. 919. This machine has also two squeezers for moulding pieces of iron when red-hot to the particular forms of the dies.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 327/1. A scraper or ‘squeezer,’ made by securing a slip of india-rubber between two slips of wood.
b. spec. An apparatus by which a ball of puddled iron is reduced to a compact mass.
1843. Holtzapffel, Turning, I. 187. The shingling is sometimes performed by large squeezers, something like huge pliers.
1868. Joynson, Metals, 74. The loupes are then removed successively from the furnace, and placed either under the hammer or squeezer.
1890. W. J. Gordon, Foundry, 60. Drilling-machines, punchers, squeezers, shearers, all of mighty size.
