v.
(squats, squatting, squatted)
- crouch or sit with the knees bent and the heels close to or touching the buttocks or thighs.
- unlawfully occupy an uninhabited building or area of land.
adj.
(squatter, squattest)
short or low, and disproportionately broad or wide.
n.
- a squatting position or movement.
▸Weightlifting an exercise in which a person squats down and rises again while holding a barbell across the shoulders.
- a building occupied by squatters.
▸an act of squatting in an uninhabited building.
- N. Amer. informal short for diddly-squat.
Derivative
- squatly adv.
- squatness n.
Etymology
ME: from OFr. esquatir ‘flatten’, based on L. coactus, past part. of cogere ‘compel’.