squab

squab

English

A nesting dove with squabs

Squab (young pigeon) leg and breast

Etymology

Unknown, unattested before 17th c.. Possibly descended from Swedish dialect skvabb (“fatty, flabby”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈskwɒb/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈskwɑb/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒb

Noun

squab (plural squabs)

1. (sometimes attributive) A baby pigeon, dove, or chicken.
2. The meat of such a baby bird used as food.
3. A baby rook.
4. A thick cushion, especially a flat one covering the seat of a chair or sofa.
   • a. 1744, Alexander Pope (imitating Earl of Dorset), Artemisia, 1795, Robert Anderson (editor), A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, page 86,

     On her large ſquab you find her ſpread, / Like a fat corpſe upon a bed, / That lies and ſtinks in ſtate.

   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “Retribution”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, OCLC 145080417, page 591:

     [H]erds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house, [...] punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touzling the feather-beds, opening and shutting all the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything.

5. A person of a short, fat figure.
   • a. 1800, William Cowper, The Progress of Error, 1824, Poems of William Cowper, Esq, page 28,

     Gorgonius sits abdominous and wan, / Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:

Synonyms

• (baby pigeon): piper, squeaker, pigeon chick, young pigeon, baby dove
• (baby rook): rook chick, young rook

Translations

baby pigeon or dove

Arabic: زُغْلُول‎ m (zuḡlūl), جَوْزَل‎ m (jawzal) Armenian: դոխ (hy) (dox), աղավնյակ (hy) (ałavnyak), աղավնու ձագ (ałavnu jag) Azerbaijani: please add this translation if you can Bulgarian: неоперено пиле (neopereno pile) Catalan: colomí (ca) m Chinese: Cantonese: 乳鴿, 乳鸽 (jyu5 gaap3) Mandarin: 乳鴿／乳鸽 (rǔgē) Danish: please add this translation if you can Esperanto: kolombido Finnish: kyyhkysenpoikanen French: pigeonneau (fr) m, colombeau (fr) m, colombelle (fr) f German: Jungtaube f, ungefiederte Jungtaube f, Taubenküken n, Taubenbaby n Greek: πιτσούνι (el) n (pitsoúni) Ancient: περιστεριδεύς m (peristerideús) Hungarian: galambfióka (hu) Kazakh: please add this translation if you can Mongolian: please add this translation if you can Polish: gołębię (pl) n Portuguese: borracho (pt) m Russian: голубо́к (ru) m (golubók), голубёнок (ru) m (golubjónok), голу́бка (ru) f (golúbka) Serbo-Croatian: golubić, golupče (sh) Spanish: pichón (es) m, palomino (es) m Swedish: duvunge (sv) Turkish: please add this translation if you can Turkmen: please add this translation if you can Volapük: pijunül (vo)

meat of a young pigeon or dove

Chinese: Mandarin: 鴿肉／鸽肉 (gēròu) Esperanto: kolombidaĵo, kolombidoviando Finnish: kyyhkysenliha French: pigeonneau (fr) m German: Täubchen (de) n, Täubchenfleisch n Greek: πιτσούνι (el) n (pitsoúni) Portuguese: borracho (pt) m Russian: голубя́тина (ru) f (golubjátina) Vietnamese: thịt bồ câu Volapük: pijunülamit (vo)

baby rook

Finnish: mustavariksen poikanen French: bébé corneille, bébé freux, petit de la corneille, petit du freux Greek: νεοσσός τρυπανοκόρακα m (neossós trypanokóraka), νεογνό τρυπανοκόρακα n (neognó trypanokóraka) Hungarian: varjúfióka Polish: gawronię (pl) n Serbo-Croatian: goluždravac (sh) Swedish: råkunge

thick cushion

Bulgarian: твърда възглавница (tvǎrda vǎzglavnica) Chinese: Mandarin: 墊子／垫子 (zh) (diànzi) Finnish: istuintyyny (fi) Greek: μαξιλάρα (el) f (maxilára) Hungarian: díványpárna Portuguese: coxim (pt) m Russian: поду́шка (ru) f (podúška) Swedish: soffkudde (sv)

Verb

squab (third-person singular simple present squabs, present participle squabbing, simple past and past participle squabbed)

1. (obsolete) To fall plump; to strike at one dash, or with a heavy stroke.
2. (transitive) To furnish with squabs, or cushions.
3. (transitive) To stuff thickly and sew through, the stitches being concealed by buttons, etc.

Adjective

squab (comparative more squab, superlative most squab)

1. Fat; thick; plump; bulky.
   • 1712, Thomas Betterton, The Miller of Trompington

     Nor the squab daughter nor the wife were nice.

   • 1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, p. 93:

     So on his Nɪɢʜᴛᴍᴀʀᴇ through the evening fog / Flits the squab fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog […] .

2. Unfledged; unfeathered.
   • 1836, Richard King, Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean

     broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young squab pigeons precipitated from above

3. Clumsy.
4. Curt; abrupt.
5. Shy; coy.

Adverb

squab (not comparable)

1. (slang) With a heavy fall; plump.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], OCLC 228727523:

     The eagle took the tortoise up into the air, and dropped him down, squab, upon a rock.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for squab in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

Anagrams

• quabs