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Squat   Listen
verb
Squat  v. i.  (past & past part. squatted; pres. part. squatting)  
1.
To sit down upon the hams or heels; as, the savages squatted near the fire.
2.
To sit close to the ground; to cower; to stoop, or lie close, to escape observation, as a partridge or rabbit.
3.
To settle on another's land without title; also, to settle on common or public lands.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Squat" Quotes from Famous Books



... assembly and open up to them the Word of Life. They are all clothed in blankets, some of them highly ornamented with needle -work and pearl buttons. When they enter the building, the men take off the bandannah handkerchiefs which are tied round their heads, and squat all around me. The men sit on one side, and the women on the other, as a rule. This fact is in consequence of the inferior position of the women, and because they are not allowed to attend the meetings which ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... the appearance of the heads of a party, and I never had the least doubt of their being the authors of the 'Gazette Ecclesiastique'. The one, tall, smooth-tongued, and sharping, was named Ferrand; the other, short, squat, a sneerer, and punctilious, was a M. Minard. They called each other cousin. They lodged at Paris with D'Alembert, in the house of his nurse named Madam Rousseau, and had taken at Montmorency a little apartment to pass the summers there. They did everything for themselves, and had neither a ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... enough to see that the bears were sitting as close as they could pack, in a large circle round the real, veritable North Pole, and that those who were moving were merely stragglers, who could not find room to squat down with the rest. I was standing contemplating the strange scene, when an immensely big fellow, catching sight of me, came waddling up on his hind legs, and growling terrifically with anger. 'This is inhospitable conduct, Mr Bruin, let me observe,' I shouted out, but ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... Novgorod And Jews who never rest; And womenfolk with spade and hod Who slave in Buda-Pest; Of squat and sturdy Japanese Who pound the paddy soil, And as I loaf and smoke at ease They toil ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... out of the shadow of the hill upon the bay. The sea about him now was running green and glistening, and the red sun-? light was coming down on it like smoke. Only the steeples and towers and glass domes of the town reached up into luminous air. He could see the squat tower of St. George's silhouetted against the dying glory of the sky. Seven years he had been its neighbour, and it had witnessed such happy and such cruel hours. All the joy of work, the sweetness of success, the dreams of greatness, the rosy flushes ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... I shall say.—I lay by the hot white sand-dunes. . Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny, Stared at the sky. And silently there above us Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge, Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows, Swift and blue, or dark. . . . What did they mean? What sinister ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... uncle replied. "I reckon no one ever found out yet how long a red-skin's patience will last. Time ain't nothing to them. They will follow up this canon both sides till they are sartin that there ain't no place where a man can climb up. If there ain't, they will just squat in that valley. Like enough they will send for their lodges and squaws and fix themselves there till winter comes, and even then they might not go. They have got wood and water. Some of them will hunt and bring ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... mooild tha can see, Aw wor never i' this way afoor, Aw've net slept a wink all th' neet throo; Aw've been twirling abaght like a worm, An' th' blankets gate felter'd, lass, too— Tha niver saw cloas i' sich form. Aw'll tell thee what 't all wor abaght— But promise tha'll keep it reight squat, For aw wodn't for th' world let it aght; But aw can't keep it in—tha knows that. We'd a meetin at the schooil yesterneet, An' Jimmy wor thear,—tha's seen Jim? An' he hutch'd cloise to me in a bit, To ax ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley

... talked in such a way as to show that I was a little on my high heels; but they were freer to tack, go about, and run before the wind than I; for some one was sure to stick to each of them like a bur and steer him to some definite place, where he could squat and afterward take advantage of the right of preemption, while I was forced to ferret out a particular square mile of this boundless prairie, and there settle down, no matter how far it might be from water, neighbors, timber or market; and fight out my battle just as ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... was engaged in moving the timbers back from the railroad siding. Superintending the work was a squat little man—Bannon could not see until near by that he was not a boy—big-headed, big-handed, big-footed. He stood there in his shirt-sleeves, his back to Bannon, swearing good-humoredly at the men. When he turned toward him Bannon saw that he had that morning played an unconscious ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... us pledge the new land in a can of beer," cried Biarne, pouring the beverage out of an earthenware jar into a squat old Norse flagon of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... with a bowl of ice in his hand and his fingers were just closing around a squat, black bottle that I knew contained the rarest and choicest whiskey ever run from a distillery. His iron-gray hair was rampant, his dressing gown fell away from his throat and showed the knotting of the great cords that ran down into his shoulders, and his dark eyes glittered under their ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... not have struck with her stern, sir," said a short, squat man, hurrying to Armitage's side. He spoke with a strong accent and passed as a Lithuanian. His expert knowledge of electricity as well as his skill in making and mending apparatus had caused Armitage to intrust him with much of the delicate work on the model, ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... the older outer city. Kublai Khan, Genghis's grandson, fixed his residence definitively in Peking in 1264, and began building the Ta-tu, or Great Residence—the Tartar city of to-day. The Chinese city is oblong; the Tartar city is squat and square and overlaps and dominates the northern walls of the older city. Kublai Khan, by building the Tartar city on the northern edge of the Chinese city and fortifying it with immense strength, may be said to have fitted the spear-head on to the Chinese shaft, and to have given the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... without interest. As a child she had read about Indians, and memory returned images both colorful and romantic. From the car window she espied dusty flat barrens, low squat mud houses, and queer-looking little people, children naked or extremely ragged and dirty, women in loose garments with flares of red, and men in white man's garb, slovenly and motley. All these strange individuals stared apathetically as ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... "Topsy," and I only wish you could see her when she is in one of her tantrums, which she has at frequent intervals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet-black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is twelve, but shows neither ability nor desire to learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless closely watched she will be found filling her pockets with the ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... its original desert life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel, which has been domesticated from a very ancient period. Young pigs, though so tame, sometimes squat when frightened, and thus try to conceal themselves even on an open and bare place. Young turkeys, and occasionally even young fowls, when the hen gives the danger-cry, run away and try to hide themselves, like young partridges or pheasants, in order that their mother ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... unawed? As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God. North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes, And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes, Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill, And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... squal'id ness wand wan'der squab was'ish ly squat squan'der squad watch'ful ness wat'ch wal'low ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... hard-favoured savage, whose native ugliness was enhanced by two scars that seamed his broad squat face, repeated the words he had before uttered, in a higher key, and with a still more imperative air, accompanying what he said, with gestures, which sufficiently explained what ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last, - The Movastar was a better boat, But the Belle she WOULDN'T be passed. And so she come tearin' along that night - The oldest craft on the line - With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... like a pirate in a tale, took this weapon between his teeth; allowed his squat, heavy bulk to swing down and dangle at arm's length for an instant, and then he swung himself a little and landed softly on the floor of ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... door of the saloon. As I did so, a short fellow with a great bushy head emerged, struggling with half a dozen men who bore down upon him and tried to surround and seize him. The little man's face was red from exertion and liquor, but when I caught a glimpse of his great squat nose and huge mouth I had no difficulty in recognizing my acquaintance on the Pirate. He backed rapidly away from his antagonists, swinging a pair of arms each of which seemed to be fully half a fathom long while every instant he let out a yell that sounded like the bellow ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... very pale blue eyes, are almost unknown among us; and when they do occur, they occur side by side with relations of every other shade. As a rule, our people vary infinitely in complexion and anatomical type, from the quite squat, long-headed, swarthy peasants whom we sometimes meet with in rural Yorkshire, to the tall, flaxen-haired, red-cheeked men whom we occasionally find not only in Danish Derbyshire, but even in mainly Celtic Wales and Cornwall. As to the west, Professor Huxley declares, on purely anthropological ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... avenue lay before him with its silence and its darkness, its lines of tall trees and low houses, its broad grey footwalks, speckled with the shadows of overhanging branches, and parted occasionally by the gloomy gaps of side streets. The squat yellow flames of the gas lamps, standing erect at regular intervals, alone imparted a little life to the lonely wilderness. And Florent seemed to make no progress; the avenue appeared to grow ever longer and longer, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... with spurs as long as a dragon's, who will sometimes lead you for a mile through bog, brake, fern, and heather, before the sudden drop of your staunch companion, and a rigidity in all his limbs, satisfy you that you have at last compelled the bird to squat under that wide holly-bush, from whence you kick him up, and feel some little exultation as you bring him down with a snap-shot, having only caught a glimpse of him through the evergreen boughs, as he endeavoured to escape by a rapid flight at the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... 'breed,'" he thought, and tried to find comfort in telling himself that there was no occasion for alarm, with her mother, hard-visaged as she was, within call. Yet as unconsciously he kept glancing back at the lonely roadhouse, sprawling squat and ugly on the desolate sweep of sand and sagebrush, the only sign of human habitation within the circle of the wide horizon, he had the same sinking feeling at the heart which came to him when he had to stand helpless watching a coyote pull down a lamb. It was in vain he argued that there ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... the speaker. Squat, stout, heavy jowled—with a neck that pushed over the back of his collar—a follower of the ring, smug, assertive, confident. A prophet? I was not ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... asleep Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep For Famagusta and the hidden sun That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; And all those ships were certainly so old— Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, The pirate Genoese Hell-raked them till they rolled Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold. But now through friendly seas they softly run, Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green, Still patterned with the ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... adults, even gray-haired grandpas and grandmas, love these tiny morsels of animation, with their quick, active, nervous movements, their simulations of fear and their sudden bursts of half-timorous confidence. With big black eyes, how they squat and watch, or stand, immovable on their hind legs, their little forepaws held as if in petition, solemnly, seriously, steadily watch, watch, watching, until they are satisfied either that you are all right, or are ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... of corbelled arches, the same cornice raking over the aisles. Beasts project at the gable angles, and the summit it crowned by a finial. All the arches are round, and the little arcade has red and grey voussoirs. To the left is a large squat campanile which was built in 1546-1562, and was then higher. A fire damaged it in 1645. The north aisle wall has an arcade of twelve arches with twisted columns, and the cast end has three apses, the central ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf 185 He strikes on, only when ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... and from the smoking-car drifts back a visible blue line of stinging tobacco smoke, and with it a crackle of laughter over the story which the young man in the bright blue suit and lavender tie and light yellow shoes has just told to the squat man in ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... walls; the reed thatching has been patched where the weather has rotted it; and here and there small spreads of tarpaulin lend their aid in keeping out the snows of winter and the storms of summer. It occupies its place, a queer, squat sentry, standing midway between the cattle ford and the newer log wagon-bridge lower down the river toward its mouth, where it joins the giant Missouri some two hundred miles distant. It backs into ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... the proper sense of nobility-the feeling that one obtains from a successful triumphal arch. The chief fault of the tower above is that it lacks the long lifting lines that would give a sense of aspiration. It seems just a little squat and fat-as if it were too heavy on top and splayed out at the sides and bottom. It is also somewhat "showy," with too much hung-on ornament; and the green columns against red walls are not satisfying-this ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... Burghers crowded round the improvised platform while the turbulent interrupters screeched some English national airs. General Kemp, who warned the crowd against the danger of being struck by missiles, asked them to squat on the ground, so as to be better able to hear General De Wet. The guerrilla General, having stepped upon the carriage-platform, said to the audience: "Yes, sit down flat so that those disturbance-makers ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... comforts. And age having despoiled me of some of these, I sharpen my appetite for those remaining. Glory, which Pliny and Cicero propose to us, is far from my thoughts. "Glory and rest are things that cannot squat on the same bench." Stay your mind in assured and limited cogitations, wherein it best may please itself, and having gained knowledge of true felicities, enjoy them, and rest satisfied without wishing a further continuance either ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... off the finer lines of its more elegant associates. A really square book would be a triumph of ugliness. Oblong books also rule themselves out of our category. A book has still a third element in its proportions, thickness. A very thin book may be beautiful, but a book so thick as to be chunky or squat is as lacking in elegance as the words we apply to it. To err on the side of thickness is easy; to err on the side of thinness is hard, since even a broadside may be ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... remained in the East. Presently these friends also, seized upon by some vast impulse which they could not control, in turn arranged their affairs and departed for the West. Franklin looked about him at the squat buildings of the little town, at the black loam of the monotonous and uninviting fields, at the sordid, set and undeveloping lives around him. He looked also at the white wagons moving with the sun. It seemed to him that somewhere out ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... how curious it is in form! Its body is short and round; its head is set on to its body without any neck; and its limbs are placed on its sides, so that it can not stand, but only squat. ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... enter the portal. Despite the fact that the bride was considered the ugliest girl in the place, she had been duly "robbed" by her bold or possibly blind lover—her features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial flammeum, and of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous accoutrements of the occasion. She was ablaze with ornaments and embroidery of gold, on neck and shoulders and wrist; a wide lace collar fell over a bodice of purple silk; silken too, and of brightest green, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... left them; and yet deeper in the forest he found a bald-headed squat old man, with a big paunch and a flat red nose and very small bleared eyes. Now the old fellow was so helplessly drunk that he could not walk: instead, he sat upon the ground, and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... to be greater here than it had been at Elephant and Castle, and John, confused by it, stood looking about him. "Thet's the Benk of England, thet!" the conductor hurriedly continued, pointing across the street to the low, squat, dirty-looking building which occupied the whole of one side of the street. "An' thet's the Royal Exchynge owver there, an' this 'ere is the Mansion 'Ouse where the Lord Mayor lives. I can't stop to tell you no more. Ayngel, Ayngel, Ayngel! ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... sound, was oblivious to the world outside. The music enveloped him and rose about him, transfiguring the plain, squat figure, floating above the spectacled face and crisp, curling locks. His hearers glanced approvingly at one another now and then, but no one spoke or moved. Suddenly they were aware that a new mood had crept into the notes. Quick, sharp flashes of fear alternated with passages of clear, ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee

... She glanced past him to the big maroon automobile at the gate. Therein she saw the squat, pugnacious looking Mr. Grimes, and she jumped to a ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... steamers, all huddled together, and our captain pointed out to me the 'Malvern' flying Admiral Porter's flag. Barges were tied up at the long wharves, and these were piled high with wares and flanked by squat warehouses. Although it was Sunday, a locomotive was puffing and panting along the foot of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... had gathered. The street was crowded and in the open space beyond they stood in little groups. On a slight eminence near the lake bluff, a man stood haranguing those around him. He was a short, very thickset little man, with very long arms—a squat, apelike figure. He talked loudly and indignantly; around him perhaps a hundred people stood ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish it—each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly arriving trading parties—each neigh of his three chargers—every new phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... A squat, powerful figure glided out of the doorway to the right. It was Harry Morgan, and the side of his face was swathed in bandages, so that he had to twist his mouth violently in order ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... would light the stumps, some squat and solid, others rising thirty or forty feet into the air. Once the fires were lit, it was necessary to keep them going; moving backwards and forwards among the trees, stoking, picking up fallen bits of burning timber and adding them to the fires, coaxing ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... declined, and told him he could get four hundred pounds for it by going back to Pniel. "But," said he, "my face is turned so; and when Squat turn his face so, he going home. Not can bear go the other way then," and he held out his hand ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... mosque, and I just took in that he was a fine venerable fellow with an important beard, with a look of wisdom and experience in his steady glance from under the strong arches of his eyebrows that made me wish I knew Arabic, and could squat beside him, and gossip of the wide world. As I turned he said quietly, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... amazement was redoubled when we recognized, at various points of vantage, squat, metallic towers of enormous strength, which caught the descending water, allowing it to issue in roaring ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... on the grassy ledge and looked out across the lichen-covered roofs and squat, rugged church tower of Tarn Regis; and pictures rose in my mind, pictures to some extent inspired, perhaps, by scraps I had read of learned essays written by my father. He had loved this ancient ground; he had ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... more than middle-aged, short, squat, and meagre; with the eye-teeth projecting on both sides, so as to hold up the upper lip, and exhibit all the others in their ivory whiteness, with an expression resembling that of the hyena. This is considered beauty,—a fashion in full vogue among her countrywomen, who cultivate it ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... therefore, he had no reason to suppose that that face was not the index to an angelic nature. Unfortunately, Tinker knew by sight most of his father's friends and enemies, and at the first glance he recognised the squat figure, the thick, square nose, and muddy complexion of Mr. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... that the Japanese tea-tray does not include a sugar basin, cream jug or spoons. It does include, however, a squat oval jug into which the hot water from the kettle is poured in order to lower the temperature below boiling point. Boiling water would bring out a bitter flavour from the tea. Made with water just below boiling point the tea is deliciously soft, even oily, and has a flavour ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... before the world had seemed enveloped in midnight darkness, and lo! here now were the splendid peaks, the singing river, all aglow with golden light. The encounter of the moment before receded swiftly, became incredible, but the preacher remained squat in his den like a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... the squat figure of the chief advanced like a machine. Jack noticed the swing of the muscular arms, the play of the legs and the occasional slight turning or ducking of the head. The straggling black hair, ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... sor?" came another shout as I rounded the squat building stuffed with boats—literally ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Winchester. Chichester I've half forgotten already—except some of the tombs. Salisbury was far more beautiful, far more impressive in its proportions than Winchester, yet to me not so impressive in other ways; and Exeter Cathedral struck me at first sight as curiously low, almost squat. But as soon as I lived down the first surprise of that effect I began to love it. The stone of which the Cathedral is built may be cold and gray; but time and carvings have made it solemn, not depressing. I stood a long time looking up at the west front, not saying ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... the flowers was everywhere. Fir-trees perfumed the air. Every doorstep was a garden. The courtyards were alive with the squat figures of capped maidens, wreathing and twisting greens and garlands. And in the streets there was such a noise as was never before heard in a city ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when entered is quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... rocks and sea. Driv'n inshore, we follow down Ancient streets of Hastings town— Slowly thread them—when behold, French canary-merchant old Shepherding his flock of gold In a low dim-lighted pen Scann'd of tramps and fishermen! There a bird, high-coloured, fat, Proud of port, though something squat— Pursy, play'd-out Philistine— Dazzled Nelly's youthful eyne. But, far in, obscure, there stirr'd On his perch a sprightlier bird, Courteous-eyed, erect and slim; And I whisper'd: "Fix on him!" Home we brought him, young ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... poop of the ship clambered a short, squat man in marvellous wide breeches and a great cutlass on hip, who clapping speaking-trumpet to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... Indians, who were recovering from an all-night drunk on their vile beer, and a revel in the "Queen's" cabin, condescended to take part in the shooting matches, but held majestically aloof from the other games. Some of them came into the French store in the evening to squat around the room and watch the dancing while they puffed in silence on their pipes and drank tea when it was passed. That was their only show of interest in the festivities. Early on the morning of the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... old woman, a "doctor," took me under her patronage. I would lie near a small fire towards the back of the hut, the two Bapedi crouching behind me. The old woman, with a sheaf of dry reeds in her withered hand, would squat on the floor near my head. Then the hut would fill up with men and women, who would arrange themselves in a crescent shaped mass, with the front rank lying down, the next crouching, those farthest ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... given it body,—to transmit itself, and retain its hold on the mind, that, though I had only now seen the Arco della Pace for the first time, I felt as if I had been familiar with it all my life; and so, doubtless, does my reader. The little squat figure, with the swarthy face, and dull, cold eye, that kept pacing beside it, watched me all the while my survey was going on. Sorely must it have puzzled him to discover the cause of the interest I took in it. Most probably he took me for a necromancer, whose simple word might ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... them; our Government can't help to float a bad loan, but I am sure we have done the French no harm at Washington. It will be good policy on the part of Maximilian to encourage Confederate soldiers, provided they don't come and squat in too great numbers. I understand that the French army is not to be withdrawn until it is no longer wanted by Maximilian, but that will not be till the ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... chap, I just pop in here and squat on one of these pedestals, d'ye see? Presently its proper occupant comes in and glares at me from the door, puffing with indignation. Inwardly he is saying, 'How dare you trespass, you bally young cub?' and I pretend to be quite unconscious ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... between the centerboard-case and the roof, at night screened Mrs. Hastings' sleeping quarters. On the opposite side the two Japanese bunked, while for'ard, under the deck, was the galley. So small was it that there was just room beside it for the cook, who was compelled by the low deck to squat on his hands. The other Japanese, who had brought the parcels on board, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... represents Him as sending out His summons to the feast in His palace puts the wonderful words in the mouth of the master of the house, after his call by his servants had been refused. 'Go out into the highways and hedges,' beneath which the beggars squat, 'and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.' 'Nature abhors a vacuum,' the old natural philosophers used to say. So does grace; so does God's love. It hates to have His house empty and His provisions unconsumed. And so He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... on the lines of the whaler Seabird, which had put in a few days before as the result of a slight collision with a fishing-boat. She was high out of the water and beautifully rigged. A dog ran up and down her decks barking, and a couple of squat figures leaned over the bulwarks ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted. He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... already studied in other latitudes. Chief among them were specimens of that dreadful cartilaginous genus that's divided into three subgenera numbering at least thirty-two species: striped sharks five meters long, the head squat and wider than the body, the caudal fin curved, the back with seven big, black, parallel lines running lengthwise; then perlon sharks, ash gray, pierced with seven gill openings, furnished with a single dorsal fin placed almost exactly in the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... made in front of a large, odd-looking structure, her Ladyship was so overcome with excitement that she could hardly stand. Ridgeway caught her as she staggered from her improvised litter. Presently she grew stronger, and with her companion entered what was apparently a palace among the squat, ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... looking-glass, and called his dog, Hope, a gift from his cousin, an old maid with an excellent heart, but no hair on her head. We started. My neighbour took with him the village constable, Arhip, a stout, squat peasant with a square face and jaws of antediluvian proportions, and an overseer he had recently hired from the Baltic provinces, a youth of nineteen, thin, flaxen-haired, and short-sighted, with sloping shoulders and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... between Sir Reginald and the professor, the former being flanked by Lethbridge (Mildmay, in accordance with previous arrangements, had ensconced himself in the pilothouse); Lualamba and the rest of the suite were quietly allowed to squat in a semicircle before them ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... goes with an over-sympathetic nature, not proud enough; while a long nose derives from the center of the upper will, the thoracic ganglion, our great center of curiosity, and benevolent or objective control. A thick, squat nose is the sensual-sympathetic nose, and the high, arched nose the sensual voluntary nose, having the curve of repudiation, as when we turn up our nose from a bad smell, but also the proud curve of haughtiness and subjective authority. The nose is one of the greatest ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... this huge bird and our English wild duck or plover. I have several times seen newly-hatched young in charge of a cock-ostrich who made a very good attempt at appearing lame in order to draw off the attention of pursuers. The young squat down and remain immoveable, when too small to run far, but they attain a wonderful degree of speed when about the size of common fowls. It requires the utmost address of the bushmen, creeping for miles on their stomach, to stalk them successfully; yet the quantity of feathers collected ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... have noticed this squat vulgarism, had not the pen blazoned its own depravity by lifting it out of newspapers into bound volumes. The speech and page of every one, who would not be italicized for lingual looseness, should be forever closed against a ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... something there," the doctor said after a while, pointing out a particularly large, squat, irregularly built affair on the edge of the "business district." The architect, however, was in favor of an exceptionally large, high building in the isolated group previously noted in the "suburbs." But because it was nearer, ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... earnestly all up and down the wonderful stretch of country that lay along the Wall from north to south. She could see the tiny dots that went for the different homesteads, scattered here and there. Up at the head there lay, hard against the frowning hills, the squat, wide blur that was Courtrey's Stronghold. Her lips compressed at sight ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... A short squat native smiled grimly, reached to the rafters of the dwelling, and took down a heavy carbine, which he loaded and then handed to the ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... apparently not more than five feet in height, with proportions suggesting those of a gorilla—a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head, which had a tangled growth of black hair and was topped with a crimson fez. A tunic of the same color, belted tightly to the waist, reached the seat—apparently a box—upon which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... can't you see!' 'But I'm all behind as 'tis'—he shouts to me—'You knows your gospel, don't you: time and tide wait for no man?' 'Ah, but dammit all, they always call for a feller'—I says. With that he turned round and we drove back for the girl. She clumb in and sat on my knees; I squat on a tub of vinegar, there was nowhere else and I was right and all, she was going on for a birth. Well, the old van rattled away for six or seven miles; whenever it stopped you could hear the rain clattering on the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... which side would have the majority. During the whole of the time the three parson prigs continued their interruptions at intervals; although they had been repeatedly admonished to conduct themselves in a more decent manner, one of them a little short squat fellow, in boots and leather breeches, made himself particularly obnoxious by his noise. At length I made my way through the dense crowd, and got alongside of them, and by a very determined remonstrance I kept the others quiet, while, by dint of placing my elbow in the little ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end, a squat round tower that had an ex- tinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the house were tall, lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of silver-grey river and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy scent ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... gloomy silence. The wind was keen, strong, prophetic of the snows which were already gathering far in the north, and the journey seemed endless; and when late in the afternoon they drew up before the squat, low hovel in which she was to spend a long and desolate winter, Blanche was shivering violently, and so depressed that she could not coherently thank the kindly young fellow who had afforded her this brief respite from her care. She staggered into the house, so stiff she could scarcely ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... a tall, slender fellow stood with arms folded, balancing himself to the sway of the rather clumsy craft and watching the water ahead. In the stern, on a little platform whence he could look over the heads of the others and catch any signal from the lookout, a squat, dark-faced steersman lounged against his crude rudder. Between these two the paddlers stood, each with one foot on the bottom of the long dugout and the other on the gunwale, swinging in nonchalant unison as their blades moved fore ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... sets the old cock right a top of 'em. Well, the warmth of the eggs felt good to the poor critter's naked belly, and kinder kept the itchin' of the nettles down, and he was glad to bide where he was; and whenever he was tired and got off his skin felt so cold, he'd run right back and squat down agin; and when his feathers began to grow, and he got obstropolous, he got another ticklin' with the nettles, that made him return double quick to his location. In a little time he larnt the trade real complete. Now, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... are recruited in the mountain districts of the Himalayas, in the kingdom of Nepal. They are short and squat in figure, never more than five feet three inches in height, of dark complexion, with deep-set eyes and high cheek-bones denoting their affinity to the Turanian race. Good-humoured and of a cheerful ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... perfectly familiar with Emanuel Sard's squat features and parrot nose, having robbed Mr. Sard of Quintana's cipher and of $4,000 at pistol point. And one morning, while roving around the guide's quarters at Ghost Lake Inn, Smith beheld Sard himself on the hotel veranda, in company with five ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... has tried—the happy thoughts, the faint hopes, the new departures and outflanking movements! And even to-day there the thing defies her—a coal-box, with a broad smile that shows its black teeth, thick and squat, filling a snug corner and swaggering in unmanly triumph over the outrage upon her ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation to all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least, on this floor. The noisome, squat, and nameless animal, to which I now refer, is not a proper model for an American Senator. Will the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... company with an American, who had gone into the shop with me. This American is a sort of transatlantic Bunsby. He talks little, but thinks much. His sole observation to me as we walked away was this, "They will squat, sir, mark my words, they will squat." I received this oracular utterance with respect, and I leave it to others to solve its meaning, I am myself a person of singular credulity, but even I sometimes ask myself whether all I hear and read can be true. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... worn off by the process of civilization; especially at the period when our fathers began to adopt the sitting posture: the fundamental evidence of all civilization, for neither apes, nor savages, can be said to sit; invariably, they squat on their hams. Among barbarous tribes benches and settles are unknown. But, my lord Media, as your liege and loving subject I can not sufficiently deplore the deprivation of your royal tail. That stiff and vertebrated member, as we find it in those rustic kinsmen we have ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... serving-men obeyed the orders of a stout, squat, vigorous man, who cast upon Christophe, as he entered, the glance of a cannibal upon his victim; he looked him over and estimated him,—measuring, like a connoisseur, the strength of his nerves, their power and their endurance. The man was ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... sent for them. The man was about five feet two inches high, and well made; his colour of a light copper; his hair black and short, and with little beard. He had two holes in his under-lip, but no ornaments in them. The woman was short and squat, with a plump round face; wore a deer-skin jacket, with a large hood, and had on wide boots. The teeth of both were black, and seemed as if they had been filed down level with the gums. The woman was punctured from the lip to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... they say, the nesters'll squat now wherever they want to, and nobody won't dast to take a shot at 'em to drive 'em off of his grass. They put so much in the papers about this rustlers' war up here that folks has got it through 'em the nesters ain't been gittin' what was comin' to 'em. The big ranches 'll all be split up ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... of oak boards on four stumps of wood for legs—a truly Titanic bedstead; one might have put a ton or two on it—it would not have bent under the load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a little table of the same strong kind, and near the table a three-legged stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes pick it up and drop it again with a smile of delight. The garret was locked up by means of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or basket-shaped loaf, only black; the key of this padlock Gerasim always carried ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... provisions, a cross-looking, thin, withered, bony woman, wrapped in a large shawl, and with boots thick enough to have kept her dry if she had walked through the sea from Plymouth to Mount Edgecombe. Her tete-a-tete companion was a short, thick, squat, stumpy, dumpy, dumpling of a man, in a round jacket, and very tight striped trousers. "Sure such a pair were never seen." The sour she, stepped into their small boat first, but as soon as her fat playfellow ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... his aunt, that nuncks was a vile bore; and the sacrilegious declaration gave great offence to the diminutive gentleman aforesaid, who hesitated not in pronouncing Timothy Surety destitute of taste and vertu; to which accusation Timothy, rearing his squat form to its utmost altitude, indignantly replied, "that there was not an alderman in the City of London of better taste than himself in the qualities of callipash and callipee, and that if the little gemmen presumed again to asperse his vartue, he would bring an action ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... down the long length of the trench was giving the same advice, and the Turks were allowed to approach until their squat forms loomed ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to know, I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success. However, it's an amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the "bearded people" that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded people! to think that the sun is still shining in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the mat of the night. McCord closed his mouth and opened it again for two words: "By gracious!" The following instant he had the lantern and was after her. I watched him go up above my head—a ponderous, swaying climber into the sky—come to the cross-trees, and squat there with his knees clamped around the mast. The clear star of the lantern shot this way and that for a moment, then it disappeared, and in its place there sprang out a bag of yellow light, like a fire-balloon at anchor in the heavens. I could see the shadows of his ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... the nose is small and naked at its extremity; the forehead very large and convex; the eyes are small; the ears short, wide between and rounded at the ends; neck thick and very strong; the body is squat and massive; the tail is so short as to be hardly distinguishable. The feet are short, very large, nearly of the same length, terminated by five toes very large and with rounded ends, the general conformation ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... with ill-restrained hatred at his fierce guards. They squat on the steps and eye him viciously. He is under the muzzle of his own pistol. It is their ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... mere group of houses round a little old church with a broad squat tower—I lunched in a very wretched inn. If a pig had not been killed at an early hour that morning I should have been obliged to be satisfied with vegetable and egg diet; and the knowledge that the pig had met with such bad luck only a few hours before ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... house to announce that some "men-bush" are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... rising slowly from a sitting to a standing position. They are told that at the first sign of dizziness they must immediately put their head between their knees so that the head is lower than the heart, or squat/sit down on the floor, I once had a faster who forgot to obey my frequent warnings. About two weeks into a long fast, she got up rapidly from the toilet and felt dizzy. The obvious thing to do was to ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... morning hours, the women take their washing. Tying the chemise below the arms, they squat down near the shore and beat the wet mass with a wooden paddle on a rock. Meanwhile the children build extensive palaces of pebbles on the bank; the carabaos, up to their noses in the river, dream in the refreshing ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... of the house came from a leaping, jolly fire in a big stone fire-place, and from half a dozen squat candles set in brackets around the walls. It was the one lovely room that Eric had ever seen. It was so large that he knew it must occupy the whole of the little house. But in spite of all the brightness, the ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... They squat you upon a low shelf, with a sort of a water-can "rose" At the nape of yer neck, while a feller in front squirts yer down with a 'ose. He slaps you as though you wos batter, he kneads you as if you wos dough, And gives yer wot for on the spine, till ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... I was idly wondering what fool had troubled to build a tavern in such a remote, out-of-the-way spot, when my ears were saluted by the sound of voices. Now, immediately beneath my window there was a heavy porch, low and squat, from which jutted a beam with a broken sign-board, and it was from beneath this porch that the voices proceeded, the one loud and hectoring, the other gruff and sullen. I was about to turn away when a man stepped out into the moonlight. His face was hidden ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... Piero Torrigiano; and this, we have some reason to believe, was finished by the master's hand. Accounts differ about his share in the remaining fourteen statues; but the matter is of no great moment, seeing that the style of the work is conventional, and the scale of the figures disagreeably squat and dumpy. It seems almost impossible that these ecclesiastical and tame pieces should have been produced at the same time as the David by the same hand. Neither Vasari nor Condivi speaks about them, although it is certain that Michelangelo was ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds



Words linked to "Squat" :   diddlyshit, move, be, low, doodly-squat, stumpy, little, leg exercise, underslung, squatter, diddly-squat, knee bend, chunky, squatness, motion, hunker down, dumpy, diddly, squatty, diddly-shit, motility, lodge in, sit down, small indefinite amount, crouch, diddlysquat, squatting



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