Squash, squish, and squoosh are very fun verbs to say.

You can even put two of them together for the wonderful expression squish-squash(which dates back to 1789) to refer to the noise we make when walking through the water or mud. Squish-squash, squish-squash. It captures a sloggy journey. I think you can say that you, the walker, are squish-squashing through the mud, or that your shoes are squish-squashing because they are making that noise.

With the verbs squash, squish, and squoosh, some speakers may argue they are fairly synonymous, capturing relatively the same thing. But other speakers (as in the video above) make some interesting distinctions among these verbs, from the force of the action, to the object being squished or squashed, to the verb tense (can squashed be the past tense of squish?) to, well, vegetables.

It is absolutely true that squash is a vegetable, but that word is unrelated to the verb. The noun squash,in reference to a vegetable, comes into English from the Native American language Narragansett in the 17th century. It is a shortened version of the original word asquutasquash.

Squash

The verb squashcomes from Old French and appears in English in the 16^th century to mean something like “repress or subdue or quash.” For many of us the verb still has that meaning, which can be a little more serious. For example we speak of squashing a rebellion or squashing a conversation.

For me, the verb squash still has the meaning of “press,” which is slightly different for me from squish.

Squish

Squish, which is imitative in origin, for many of us, means something like “squeeze.” For example, if I squish a bug with a tissue, for me it means I am probably squeezing it a bit too much, such that its insides might come out a bit — which I realize is a little gross, but it captures a lot about the meaning of this verb.

… and Squoosh

The verb squoosh is much newer. It does not show up until the first half of the 20^th century. Most dictionaries that include it – and not all dictionaries include it yet — will say it’s a variant of squash. It is, of course, also very much like squish.

It could be its newness or its double “o.” I think squoosh is probably the most playful of the three.

I certainly don’t think we would talk about squooshing a rebellion.
 
 
This video appears courtesy of LSA Today. Curzan’s observations on language also can be heard on the Michigan Radio program “That’s What They Say.”