squat

verb (squats, squatting, squatted)

• 1 [no object] crouch or sit with one’s knees bent and one’s heels close to or touching one’s buttocks or the back of one’s thighs:I squatted down in front of him
• [with object] Weightlifting crouch down with one’s knees bent and rise again while holding (a specified weight) across one’s shoulders:he can squat 850 pounds

• 2 [no object] unlawfully occupy an uninhabited building or settle on a piece of land:eight families are squatting in the house
• [with object] unlawfully occupy (an uninhabited building): Clare, Briony, and the others had squatted the old council house

adjective (squatter, squattest)

• short and thickset; disproportionately broad or wide:he was muscular and squat a squat grey house

noun

• 1 [in singular] a squatting position.
• Weightlifting an exercise in which a person squats down and rises again while holding a barbell across one’s shoulders.
• (in gymnastics) an exercise involving a squatting movement or action.

• 2a building occupied by people living in it without the legal right to do so: a basement room in a North London squat
• an unlawful occupation of an uninhabited building: this squat cost the ratepayer £46,000

• 3North American informalshort for diddly-squat.I didn’t know squat about writing plays