different between squish vs spongy

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skw??/
• Rhymes: -??

Etymology 1

Apparently an alteration of squash, influenced by obsolete squiss (“to squeeze”). Cognate with Scots squische, squies (“to crush, squeeze”). Compare also French esquicher from Old Occitan esquichar (“to squeeze, squish”). See also squeeze, squelch.

Noun

squish (countable and uncountable, plural squishes)

1. (countable) The sound or action of something, especially something moist, being squeezed or crushed.
   • 2007, Robin Parrish, Fearless (page 207)

     Alex reached the bottom and Grant heard a squish as she landed in the mud on the bottom of the river.

2. (countable, politics, informal, derogatory) A political moderate.
   • 2009, Time (volume 173, issues 17-26, page 236)

     Some conservatives think that in the long run, the party will be better off without squishes like Specter […]

3. (countable, Britain, slang, archaic) Marmalade.
   • 1880, Belgravia (volume 40, page 63)

     Where they are loaves and joints melt as snow in the sunshine; bowls of cream are of no more account than acorn-cups filled with dew; and the 'squish'—as they call the mother's home-made marmalade—has to be renewed daily; […]

   • 1905, The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home (page VIII)

     There was a time when the “squish” manufactured by Mr. Frank Cooper at Oxford was not known very extensively outside the world of undergraduates. With the march of events though the fame of Cooper's Oxford marmalade has become world-wide, and the natural consequence is that a new factory has had to be built to cope with the increased business.

Translations

Verb

squish (third-person singular simple present squishes, present participle squishing, simple past and past participle squished)

1. (transitive, informal) To squeeze, compress, or crush (especially something moist).

   The sandwich tasted fine, even though it got squished in his lunchbox.

   • 2012, Adam Freeman, Windows 8 Apps Revealed Using XAML and C# (page 74)

     Rather than squishing everything into a tiny window, I have shown only part of my app.

2. (intransitive, informal) To be compressed or squeezed.
   • 2013, Julia Crane, Talia Jager, Broken Promise

     I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my toes on the soft moss. It felt amazing as it squished between my toes, […]

Synonyms

• (to squeeze, compress): condense, squash; see also Thesaurus:compress

Derived terms

• squishy

Translations

Etymology 2

First possible attestation from 1999. Formed by analogy with crush and possibly smash, both of which have senses as types of compression as well as types of attraction. Later coined or recoined in 2007 by the user Raisin on the forums of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network as "a milder synonym for the word 'crush'". The same term was used with a similar meaning in a 1997 episode of the TV show Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, though the 2007 (re)coining was apparently independent.

Noun

squish (plural squishes)

1. (LGBT, slang) A non-romantic and generally non-sexual infatuation with somebody one is not dating, or the object of that infatuation; a platonic crush.

References

English

Alternative forms

• spongey

Etymology

sponge +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?nd?i/

Adjective

spongy (comparative spongier, superlative spongiest)

1. Having the characteristics of a sponge, namely being absorbent, squishy or porous.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 2,^[1]

     Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I

     As far as toucheth my particular,

     Yet, dread Priam,

     There is no lady of more softer bowels,

     More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

     More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'

     Than Hector is:

   • 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, Volume 2, Chapter 28, p. 246,^[2]

     […] there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator had been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half-smothered and palsied.
2. Wet; drenched; soaked and soft, like sponge; rainy.
   • c. 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1,^[3]

     Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,

     Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,

   • 1633, John Donne, “The Indifferent” in Poems, London: John Marriot, p. 200,^[4]

     Her who still weepes with spungie eyes,

     And her who is dry corke, and never cries;

     I can love her, and her, and you and you,

     I can love any, so she be not true.

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 3,^[5]

     […] I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river […]

   • 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, 1968, p. 21,^[6]

     It rains […] most of the fall and winter and much of the spring. It’s a spongy sky you’ll be wearing on your head.

3. (slang) Drunk.

Synonyms

• (characteristics of a sponge): spongelike
• (soaked and soft): See Thesaurus:wet
• (drunk): See Thesaurus:drunk

Derived terms

• spongily
• sponginess
• spongy lead
• spongy platinum

Translations