subs. (old).—1. Anything fat, short, and dumpy. Hence (2) a fat sofa or well-filled bed. As adj. (SQUABBY, SQUADDY, SQUATTY, SQUABBISH, &c.) = fat and short, heavy, bulky (in quot. 1756 = short, abrupt).—GROSE. As verb. = to fall heavily, to plump down.
1593. Greene’s News from Heaven and Hell. A fatte SQUADDY Monke, that had beene well fedde in some Cloyster.
1666. GIDEON HARVEY, Morbus Anglicus; or, The Anatomy of Consumptions, ch. xxviii., p. 157. [Diet makes] those of a SQUABBISH lardy habit of body.
1675. WYCHERLEY, The Country Wife, iv. 3. A little SQUAB French page who speaks no English.
1692. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Fables, 220. The Eagle … took him [the Tortoise] up … into the Air…. She dropt him down, SQUAB upon a Rock.
c. 1708. POPE, Artemisia [CHALMERS, English Poets, xii. 211]. ‘Artemisia.’
| On her large SQUAB you find her spread, | |
| Like a fat corpse upon a bed. |
1712. BETTERTON, Miller of Trompington. Nor the SQUAB daughter nor the wife were nice.
1712. ADDISON, The Spectator, No. 529, 6 Nov. Seated himself upon a SSQUABB.
1716. POPE, Letter, ‘To Lady M. W. Montague,’ 18 Aug. We shall then see how the prudes of this world owed all their fine figure only to their being a little straiter laced; and that they were naturally as arrant SQUABS as those that went more loose.
1759. GOLDSMITH, The Bee, No. 2. A French woman is a perfect architect in dress…. She never tricks out a SQUABBY Doric shape with Corinthian finery.
1756. WALPOLE, Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 25 July, iii. 125. We have returned a SQUAB answer.
1855. GASKELL, North and South, xii. Bessie, herself, lay on a SQUAB, or short sofa, placed under the window.
1834. SEBA SMITH (‘Major Downing’), Jack Downing’s Letters, i. 34. I hadn’t hardly got sot down…. And in come a great, stout, fat, SQUADDY woman.
1870. JUDD, Margaret, ii. 11. Ladies in … short cloaks, with hoods SQUABBING behind.
1885. Daily Telegraph, 10 Sept. The SQUABBY stone structure.
2. (colloquial).—An inexperienced person; a fledgling. As adj. = CALLOW (q.v.), coy, quiet.
1635. R. BROME, The Sparagus Garden, ii. 2. Brit. Is he a trim youth? Mon. We must make him one, Jacke; ’tis such a SQUAB … such a lumpe.
1681. N. LEE, The Princess of Cleve, iii. 1. Your demure Ladies that are so SQUOB in company, are Devils in a corner.
d. 1712. W. KING, The Old Cheese [CHALMERS, English Poets, ix. 297].
| Why must old pigeons, and they stale, be drest, | |
| When there’s so many SQUAB ones in the nest? |
1781. COWPER, Progress of Error, 218.
| Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, | |
| Like a fat SQUAB upon a Chinese fan. |
Verb. (King Edward’s School, B’gham).—To squeeze by: also SQUOB: with foot on wall or desk, and back against the victim who is similarly treated on the other side, or pressed against the opposite wall. Also SQUAB-UP = to push.
