Also 8 squelsh. [Imitative.]
1. A heavy crushing fall or blow acting on a soft body; the sound produced by this.
1620. Shelton, Quix., III. iv. 25. The Stakes fail’d, and I got a good Squelch upon the Ground.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xliii. 59. Giving their Adversaries such deadly squelches as they shall never rise again.
1719. Ozell, trans. Misson’s Mem. Trav. Eng., 25. A Turn of the [Bull’s] Horn … puts him in Danger of a damnable Squelch when he comes down.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), II. 18. His shoulders and head came with a squelch to the earth.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xix. I heard a heavy squelch and a howl.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., xxi. (1858), 467. I heard a peculiar sound,—a squelch, if I may employ such a word.
fig. 1685. F. Spence, trans. Varillas’ Ho. Medicis, 301. The house of Medici now seem’d humbled by so terrible a squelch, that it cou’d not … get up again.
b. fig. A disconcerting surprise.
1815. Lamb, Corr., 278. Just such a cold squelch as going down a plausible turning and suddenly reading ‘No thoroughfare.’
2. A thing or mass that has the appearance of having been squelched or crushed. Also fig.
1837. Carlyle, Misc. Ess. (1888), V. 195. A mangled squelch of gore, confusion and abomination.
1849. D. G. Rossetti, Lett. to W. M. Rossetti, 24 Sept. Your surgeon … is a wretched sneak—quite a sniggering squelch of a fellow.
3. The sound made by a liquid when subjected to sudden or intermittent pressure.
1895. Snaith, Mistress Dorothy Marvin, xxviii. ’Twas sickening to feel the squelch of the blood at your sword point.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 476. To the expert physician the sounds are not closely alike; that of gastralgia is a squelch.
