squab n.1
1. a very fat person; also as adj.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Squab a very fat, truss Person. | |
| London Spy XI 262: The Mob declaring their Approbation and Applause [...] which was no little Satisfaction to the Wabbling Squab. | |
 | Letter To Lady M. W. Montague 18 Aug. n.p.: The prudes of this world owed all their fine figure only to their being a little straiter laced; and that they were naturally as arrant squabs as those that went more loose [F&H]. | |
| Newcastle Courant 11 Nov. 10/1: A Dutchman is thick, A Dutch woman squab. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |
| Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 163: Margery Squab, of Ratcliffe-Highway, spinster. | |
| Thraliana i Dec. 198: Women's Minds are commonly like their Shapes, either screwed up to ridiculous Smallness, or else loosed out—to a Squab, in their own emphatical phrase. | |
| Prog. of Error 218: Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan. | |
| (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 197: His rib was a fat laughing squab of a woman. | |
| Eng. Spy I 363: A fat, little squab of a citizen. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Sthn Reporter (Cork) 25 Nov. 4/1: A bloated fat squab of a gourmand. | |
| Oddities of London Life 9: Gardener, a squab, blear eyed personage, better known in the polished regions of Duck-lane by his sobriquet of ‘Crackem’. | |
| Story of Feather 141: This spiritual comforter as a fat, squab man. | |
| Croydon Chron. 3 May 2/4: Dora Stagg [...] added that she heard the defendent call complainant ‘an awkward fat squab’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Pittsburgh Dly Post (PA) 16 July 9/2: A fat man is a squab. | |
| Dict. Amer. Sl. | |
| Record (Hackensack, NJ) 6 Mar. 4/7: ‘Squab’ [...] may also be applied to a fat, short person. |
2. a short person.
| Pic-nic Sketches 207: He looks down with disdain upon little people. He calls them ‘squabs’. |
3. used adv. too denote the sudden decent of a squab-shaped individual or object ontoo a hard surface.
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 19 Feb. 446/2: The watchman pushed him down squab upon the lantern, by which squab it was smashed. |
4. (UK und.) a sofa.
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 10: Squab or sq[u]ob: Couch or sofa. |
In derivatives
fat, also as nickname.
| American Cruiser 201: ‘She was a short, thick, squabby, red-faced, one-eyed Irish gal’. | |
| Old North State (Elizabeth City, NC) 7 Dec. 1/2: ‘Why, look here,’ said a great squabby fellow. | |
| Reynolds’s Newspaper (London) 14 Dec. 3/1: A more commonplace miscreant whose name of Squabby (by which his companions addressed him) was [...] one of those external indications of character. | |
| Crying Shame of NY 117: Huge limbed and squabby, they show in their make-up the low breed of the human animal from which they spring. | |
| Jackson Standard (OH) 23 Dec. 3/3: His host — whom we will call Squabby — proposed to come to town. | |
| Kansas Wkly Herald (Hiawatha, KS) 13 Feb. 1/4: In appearance he was a squabby fellow. | |
| Courier (Waterloo, IA) 28 Oct. 4/4: A squabby, red-faced woman, sitting on the edge of a low bed, leered upon me, but with no salutation. | |
| Complete Wks 9 2441: A squabby, red-faced [...] leered upon me . | |
| Dly News (NY) 17 June 76/2: Squabby Vines was not his usual cheerful self. | |
| Courier Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 7 Dec. 2/5: Slim and Squabby Leo were two gray cats. |