A failure in recitation; or one who fails. College slang. See SPOOPS.
1872. I know what you are thinking—you ’re thinking this is a squirt. That word has taken the nonsense out of a good many high-stepping fellows. But it did a good deal of harm too, and it was a vulgar lot that applied it oftenest.—Holmes, ‘The Poet at the Breakfast-Table,’ ch. ix. (Italics in the original.)
