squid (skwid)

[Origin unknown.] 1. A kind of cuttlefish or calamary; a dibranchiate cephalopod with ten arms, especially of the family Loliginidæ or Teuthidida. The name is most frequently given to the small, slender calamaries, a few inches long and with a caudal fin, which are much used as bait, but is extended (with or without a qualifying term) to many other species of different genera and fami 1. To crush down; stamp on as if squeezing out something liquid; put an end to. [Colloq.] 'Sfoot, this Fat Bishop hath so overlaid me, So squelch'd and squeezed me. Middle ton, Game at Che , v. 3. Here, all about the fields, is the wild carrot. You cut off its head, just before it seeds, and you think you have squelched it; but this is just what Nature. wanted you to do. J. Burroughs, The Century, XIX. 688. 2. To disconcert; discomfit; put down. [Colloq.] Luke glanced shamefaced at the nosegay in his buttonhole, and was squelched . J. W. Palmer , After his Kind, p. 120. II. in trans. To be crushed. [Colloq.] of cephalopods. See cuts under Architeuthis, calamary, Desmoteuthis, Loliginida, Sepiola, and Spirula, and compare those under Dib ranch i at a, cuttlefish, and Sepia. 2. An artificial bait or lure of metal, ivory, etc., used in angling or trolling for fish, often simply a fish-hook on the shank of which a ma of lead is melted in cylindrical or tapering form to imitate a squid (def. 1). - False squids, the Loli gopside. - Flying squids, the Ommastrephida. - Giant squids, the very large cephalopods of the genus Archi teuthis, as A. harvey i of the Atlantic coast of North America, among those called devil - fish. See cut under Archi teuthis.-Long-armed squids, the Chiroteuthididæ. Long-finned squids, species of Loliginidæ. See cut under Loliginida. - Short-finned squids, species of Ommastrephes, as O. illecebrosus, common in New England seas and northward, and a principal source of bait. squid squid (skwid), v. i.; pret. and pp. squidded, ppr. squidding. [