| 释义 |
▪ I. squatter, n.1|ˈskwɒtə(r)|
[f. squat v.]
1. a. U.S. and early Austral. A settler having no formal or legal title to the land occupied by him, esp. one thus occupying land in a district not yet surveyed or apportioned by the government.
1788J. Madison in Sparks Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853) IV. 207 Many of them and their constituents are only squatters upon other people's land, and they are afraid of being brought to account. 1809Kendall Trav. III. lxxiv. 160 Upon visiting his lands, he finds..possession taken by a race of men, (the settlers and lumberers,) who in this view are called squatters. 1830J. Betts in Occas. Papers Univ. Sydney Austral. Lang. Res. Cent. (1965) No. 4. 13 A clan of people called ‘Squatters’. These were generally emancipated convicts, or ticket-of-leave men, who, having obtained a small grant, under the old system, or without any grant at all, sat themselves down in remote situations, and maintained large flocks, obtained generally, in very nefarious ways, by having the run of all the surrounding country. 1833W. H. Breton Excursions in N.S.W. 442 There are likewise in the colony certain persons called ‘squatters’ (the term is American) who are commonly..of the lowest grade. 1834Pringle Afr. Sk. iii. 162 Engelbrecht is what in America would be called a Squatter. He has no land of his own. 1835Sydney Gaz. 28 Apr. 2 In every part of the country squatters without any reasonable means of maintaining themselves by honesty, have formed stations, and evidently pursued a predatory warfare against the flocks and herds in the vicinity. 1856Whittier Panorama 478 The hunted bison tires, And dies o'ertaken by the squatter's fires.
b. An unauthorized occupant of land.
1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. I. 359 At another time an impudent squatter settled himself there, and built a shed for rubbish. 1860G. H. K. Vac. Tour 156 Hundreds of squatters from the neighbouring parts of Sutherland and Ross. 1874Jefferies Toilers of Field (1892) 68 Commonly the squatters pitched on a piece of land..running parallel to the highway or lane.
c. In fig. uses.
1821Coleridge in Blackw. Mag. X. 250 An intrusive supernumerary or squatter in the same tenement and workshop. 1897Bailey Princ. Fruit-growing 342 It will..be necessary to begin hunting for borers, and other squatters and campers.
d. One who occupies an uninhabited building illegally (esp. as a member of an organized group).
1880W. H. Dixon Royal Windsor IV. xxix. 269 The King's house was a wreck; the fanatic, the pilferer, and the squatter, having been at work. 1946Times 12 Aug. 2/3 Doncaster Rural District Council has turned on the water supply for a colony of its ‘squatters’ in military huts at Sprotborough. 1952M. Laski Village xiii. 185 The London squatters had moved into their flats and their hotels, and triumphantly held the police and all the authorities at bay. 1968Guardian 2 Dec. 1/3 The London Squatters Campaign—formed three weeks ago. 1973Ld. Denning in All England Law Reports III. 395 [McPhail v. Persons unknown]. What is a squatter? He is one who, without any colour of right, enters on an unoccupied house or land, intending to stay there as long as he can. 1980Oxf. Compan. Law 1171/2 A squatter is a trespasser and liable to criminal penalties if he forces entry against the opposition of the lawful occupier or if, having been warned, he fails to leave.
2. Austr. and N.Z. One occupying a tract of pastoral land as a tenant of the crown; a grazier or sheep-farmer, esp. on a large scale.
In early Australian use (c 1835-) the term was employed as in sense 1.
1840G. Arden Austr. Felix 109 Under this license the squatter is protected. 1847Leichhardt Jrnl. Introd. p. xiv, We were received with the greatest kindness by my friends the ‘Squatters’, a class principally composed of young men of good education, gentlemanly habits, and high principles. 1872M. A. Barker Christmas Cake in Four Quarters iv. ii. 260 Amongst our most constant guests were the Scotch shepherds of a neighbouring ‘squatter’. 1889Mrs. C. Praed Rom. Station 12, I am glad to have married a squatter instead of a townsman. 1891,1933[see cocky n.2 2]. 1959P. R. Stephens in A. McLintock Descr. Atlas N.Z. 38 The squatters soon became the dominant political force in the new country.
3. a. A squatting person or animal.
1824Chalmers in Mem. (1851) III. ii. 17 Dr. Haldane was not one of the squatters, but somehow his dusty back got into the view of the audience. 1872Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. lxviii. 13 Their enemies may have called them squatters among the pots. 1894Athenæum 3 Feb. 144/1 The portrait of a toad ‘from life’ is creditable alike to the artist and the sitter—or rather squatter.
b. Austr. A bronze-wing pigeon of the genus Phaps, either P. elegans or P. chalcoptera.
1872C. H. Eden In Queensland 122 On the plains you find different kinds of pigeons, the squatters being most common,..crouching down to the ground quite motionless as you pass.
c. Cricket. A ball which remains low on pitching; a shooter.
1955I. Peebles On Ashes 109 In Statham's first over to Miller there were three ‘squatters’. 1959Times 7 Aug. 4/4 Phelan failed by only a whisker to bowl Pataudi with a squatter.
4. attrib., as squatter magistrate; squatter(s') camp S. Afr., an area in or around a town, occupied (usu. without permission) by the very poor for whom no housing provision has been made; squatter pigeon Austr., = sense 3 b; squatter's (or squatters'; occas. † squatter) right(s) orig. U.S., the right of a squatter to the land on which he has settled; also in extended and fig. use; squatter sovereignty U.S., the right claimed by the inhabitants of newly-formed territories to settle for themselves the question of slavery or other institutions; squatter state (see quot.).
1956T. Huddleston Naught for your Comfort iii. 48 It is about ten or twelve miles from the centre of the city—a *squatters' camp..a conglomeration of lean-to, corrugated-iron and mud-brick dwellings. Ibid. vi. 106, I decided to fight it [sc. an eviction order]..even though it meant that the squatter camp, with all the inevitable hardships it must entail, would remain and would grow. 1970Stand. Encycl. S. Afr. II. 141/1 That objective [sc. residential segregation] was realised in part by providing more and better housing for the Bantu and by demolishing squatters' camps and slums. 1986Daily Tel. 7 Oct. 20/3 The Archbishop..parading around the squatter camp of Crossroads in South Africa, apparently under the impression that it was typical of the way black South Africans have to live.
1894H. Nisbet Bush Girl's Rom. 214 To congratulate the *squatter magistrate on his good fortune.
1881Gentl. Mag. Jan. 69 For the first time I saw the *squatter pigeon, a pretty little brown dove, that derives its name from its habit of squatting on the ground.
1854H. D. Thoreau Walden i. 54 These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones and sand, which I claimed by *squatter's right. 1857T. H. Gladstone Englishman in Kansas 168 The ‘squatter-right’ to a lot of ground is bought and sold on the strength of the law..which asserts its power by rifle and tomahawk. 1883Brandon (Manitoba) Daily Mail 24 Feb. 4/2 The infernal row you are all making up there about grievances, monopolies, squatters' rights, etc. 1944N. Streatfeild Curtain Up xvi. 222 A talent once accepted acquired squatter's rights, as it were. 1958B. Hamilton Too Much of Water x. 209 They had, by constant use.., almost acquired squatters' rights over a small table in the aft corner. 1968E. S. Russenholt Heart of Continent ii. v. 76 Families already living along the Assiniboine, exercise ‘squatter's rights’, and lay claim to the newly-surveyed River Lots. 1973‘Trevanian’ Loo Sanction (1974) 207 The lone painter..had come to assume over the years that the space, the stove, and the tea were his by squatter's right.
1854in Rep. 200, Ho. Representatives 34th Congr., 1st Sess. 954 We are in favor of bona fide *squatter sovereignty. 1860Lowell Election in Nov. Prose Wks. 1890 V. 25 The Pro-Slavery party..here..represents Squatter-Sovereignty, and there the power of Congress over the Territories. 1894J. Fiske Hist. Amer. 342 The doctrine of ‘squatter sovereignty’; not Congress, but the ‘squatters’ were to be the supreme authority on the great question. It was the principle of ‘local option’ applied to slavery.
1872Schele de Vere Americanisms 659 It [Kansas] appears occasionally as *Squatter State, from the pertinacity with which the squatter-sovereignty was discussed there.
▪ II. ˈsquatter, n.2 Sc.
[f. squatter v.]
Sputtering, spatter; a loud fluttering noise.
1792A. Wilson Poems & Lit. Prose (1876) II. 38 Frae his devilish mouth the froth Flew aff wi' squatter. 1834M. Scott Cruise Midge (1859) 415 Such a squatter as a flock of a thousand teal..rose into the air with a loud rushing noise.
▪ III. squatter, v.|ˈskwɒtə(r)|
[Prob. imitative.]
†1. intr. ? To be fussily busy. Obs.—1
1593G. Harvey New Letter Wks. (Grosart) I. 282, I haue not bene squattering at my papers for nothing, and..I can dawbe with my incke like none of the Muses.
†2. = squitter v. 2. Obs.—0
1598Florio, Squaccarare, to squatter, to squirt or lash it out behind after a purgation. 1611Cotgr., Aller long, to haue a squirt, to squatter out behind.
†3. trans. To scatter, disperse, spill. Obs.
1611Cotgr., Escarter, to sheed, squatter, throw about, or abroad. Ibid., Espancher, to squatter, spill, sheed, or poure out disorderedly, or in hast. 1653Urquhart Rabelais i. xxvii, To some others he..squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs.
4. intr. To fly or run, to struggle along, to make one's way, among water or wet with much splashing or flapping. Const. away, out of, through, etc.
1785Burns Address to Deil viii, Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake, On whistling wings. 1790A. Wilson Poems & Lit. Prose (1876) II. 103 Three years thro' muirs an' bogs I've squattert. 1825Scott Let. in Lockhart (1839) VII. 354, I climbed Bennarty like a wild goat,..and squattered through your drains like a wild duck. 1853C. Brontë Villette xxv, A little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without leave. 1863Kingsley Water-Bab. ii, Where the wild ducks squatter up from among the white water lilies. 1886Ruskin Præterita I. v. 143 He pitched the boy..into the canal,..but I believe the lad squattered to the bank without help.
b. To flutter, flap, or struggle among water or soft mud.
1808Jamieson, To Squatter, to flutter in water, as a wild duck, &c. 1833M. Scott Tom Cringle i, A six-pound shot drove our boat into staves, and all hands were the next moment squattering in the water. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 259 We..were all soon squattering about on our own account in the elephant bath. |