squat
squat
/skwɒt/
/skwɑːt/
1 intransitive squat (down) to sit on your heels with your knees bent up close to your body Children were squatting on the floor.
When we saw them we squatted down behind a wall.
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2 intransitive, transitive squat (something) to live in a building or on land which is not yours, without the owner’s permission They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road.
squat
/skwɒt/
/skwɑːt/
1 (especially British English) a building that people are living in without permission and without paying rent
to live in a squat
2 a squatting position of the body
3 (also squat thrust) an exercise in which you start with your hands on the floor and your knees bent, and then quickly move both legs backwards and forwards together
e.g.
squat
/skwɒt/
/skwɑːt/
short and wide or fat, in a way that is not attractive
a squat tower
a squat muscular man with a shaven head
The man had a broad face and a squat neck.
Word Origin
Middle English (in the sense ‘thrust down with force’): from Old French esquatir ‘flatten’, based on Latin coactus, past participle of cogere ‘compel’, from co- ‘together’ + agere ‘drive’ The current sense of the adjective dates from the mid 17th cent.