Green’s Dictionary of Slang

squitters, the n.

1. diarrhoea; also as v.

1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 12: It [i.e. beer] bounces, foams, and froths, and flitters, / As if ’twere troubl’d with the squitters.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 108: She’ll / [...] / Give them the Running, Gripes, and Squitter.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) IV 784: I [...] heard him let fly before he sat on the seat (he had the squitters).
1944		J.S. Pennell Hist. of Rome Hanks 4: They had finished fighting and marching and starving and shaking and squittering and had gone home. [Ibid.] 40: They would wake each other to sit side by side on a double-barrelled latrine box. [...] They sat squittering in the moonlight.
1946		R. Rivett Behind Bamboo 399/1: Squitters, diarrhoea, dysentery.
1949		Vancouver Sun (BC) 19 Apr. 28/2: Having the Calcutta squitters, i was an unpredictable companion.
1954		J. Giono Horseman on the Roof 49: Better a few blisters than the squitters at a time like this, believe me.
1963		C. Wood ‘Spare’ in Cockade (1965) I i: And he’s sick – I’ve got the eye of a needle [...] squitters.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 61: If the morning headache is accompanied by the dry heaves and a touch of the squitters.
1998		A. Warner Sopranos 40: A juge puddle of skitter spread under his skinny buttock.
1999		Indep. Rev. 30 July 17: But most contented themselves by leaving with galloping squits or scabies.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 squits, squirts n. diarrohea.
2007		Eve. Herald (Dublin) 2 May 43/4: You can produce popcorn [...] that should give Eddie Hobbs the squitters.

2. in fig. use of sense 1.

1957

G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 22: Keep your eye peeled for ’er—she gets the squitters. Once, this ticket machine, pressed dahn for one eightpenny, exploded out two hundred and fifty fivepennies.

In derivatives

squittered (adj.)

fouled with excrement.

1655

E. Gayton Wil Bagnals Ghost 4: (For up all heels full swift did fly) / Left all his squittered company, / Most stinking.

In phrases

not give a squitter (v.)

to not care at all.

1993

S. King Dolores Claiborne 118: Joe didn’t give a squitter if they went to college or not.