Squash

How to spell squash

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce squash

What does squash mean?

1. verbTo press or crush something so that it becomes flat or out of shape.
2. nounAn indoor racquet game played by two people hitting a small rubber ball against the walls of an enclosed court.
3. nounA fleshy gourd, such as a pumpkin or marrow, eaten as a vegetable.
4. nounA concentrated fruit cordial diluted with water to make a soft drink.

Squash in a sentence

• verb

  Try not to squash the cake when you pack the lunch box.

• noun

  They booked a squash court at the gym for an early game.

• noun

  She roasted a butternut squash with olive oil and herbs.

• noun

  The children were given orange squash at the party.

• verb

  Commuters had to squash into the last carriage of the train.

• noun

  He took up squash to improve his fitness over the winter.

Where does squash come from?

Language of origin: French

The verb arrived in English in the 1300s from Old French esquasser or esquasher, meaning 'to crush' or 'to flatten'. That word traces back to the Latin quassare, a form built on quatere, which literally meant 'to shake' and by extension 'to break to pieces'. The same Latin root sits behind 'quash' (to suppress or annul) and 'concussion' (a violent shaking of the head). The vegetable sense is entirely unrelated in origin: it is a shortening of the Narragansett word askutasquash, used by Indigenous peoples of New England, recorded by English colonists in the 1640s. The racquet game took its name in the 1880s because the soft rubber ball used can be squashed in the hand, distinguishing it from the harder ball of an earlier court game. The doubled 'qu' followed by 'sh' is what trips writers, since the cluster looks heavier on the page than it sounds.

How the word is built

• Likely from Old French esquasser/esquasher: es- (intensive, from Latin ex-)
• quasser (to shatter, from Latin quassare 'to shake violently')