squash
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skwahshIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈskwɑʃ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
A non-alcoholic drink made from a fruit-based concentrate diluted with water or milk.
Cucurbita pepo, most pumpkins, acorn squash, summer squash, zucchini.
Cucurbita argyrosperma (syn. Cucurbita mixta), cushaw squash.
Cucurbita maxima, including hubbard squash, great winter squash, buttercup squash, and some varieties of pumpkins.
A place or a situation where people have limited space to move.
verb
transitive
To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.
transitiveintransitive
To compress or restrict (oneself) into a small space; to squeeze.
transitive
To suppress; to force into submission.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A sport played in a walled court with a soft rubber ball and bats like tennis racquets.
Used this way, squash is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
- Sports
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
That has been violently compressed.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Large black American bug that sucks sap of vines of the gourd family.
The indoor court in which squash is played.
Similar to pumpkin pie but made with winter squash instead of pumpkin.
A small racket with a long handle used for playing squash.
A small racket with a long handle used for playing squash.
Any of numerous annual trailing plants of the genus Cucurbita grown for their fleshy edible fruits.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- tennisnoun
- badmintonnoun
- racquetballnoun
- billiardsnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to beat or press into pulp
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