squirt
/skwəːt
/verb [with object and adverbial of direction]
1Cause (a liquid) to be ejected from a small opening in a thin, fast stream or jet: she squirted soda into a glass...
- The children saw the inside of the engine, tried on the safety helmets, and had a go at squirting the water with a hose.
- Kirk Fenton Primary children have made an elephant, using wood, wire, fabric, cardboard and paper, which can squirt water out of its trunk, as well as a crocodile chasing a man on a river and a mashed-potato monster.
- An octopus has no backbone and will squirt ink indiscriminately if threatened.
1.1Cause (a container of liquid) to eject its contents in a thin, fast stream: some youngsters squirted a water pistol in her face...
- What you do is squirt a packet of ketchup on your arm, have a seat and watch the tragicomic parade of gore and suffering roll past.
- Before they left the stage they squirted water bottles into the crowd, hands were in the air and they bid their goodbyes as they introduced the Hiero crew.
- We used to squirt water-pistols and climb inside Daleks and start up weird little catchphrases and the music and the whole style of The Rezillos came out of that.
1.2 [with object] Wet with a jet or stream of liquid: she squirted me with scent...
- We visited its scent museums and factories, squirting ourselves with so many fragrances that we couldn't tell them apart - and emerged smelling like a tart's handbag.
- I wondered what they thought when they came to the liquid center, and whether one of them got squirted in the eye.
- His friend then went to his aid, but also got squirted with the viscous liquid.
Synonyms
splash, wet, spray, shower, spatter, bespatter, splatter, sprinkle
Scottish & Irish informal slabber
literary besprinkle
1.3 [no object, with adverbial of direction] (Of a liquid) be ejected from something in a thin, fast stream: tread on one of these and a jet of water squirts up your leg...
- The creature shrieked as each laser shot cut into it and a thick black liquid squirted out from the massive wounds.
- Top performer, of course, is the 1.8 petrol, which squirts to 62 mph in 10.8 seconds.
- If I left the cap loose on the radiator, the anti-freeze wouldn't squirt out, even though the radiator was split.
Synonyms
spurt, shoot, spray, spritz, fountain, jet, erupt;
gush, pour, stream, rush, pump, surge, spew;
spill, flow, course, well, spring, burst, issue, emanate;
disgorge, discharge, emit, belch forth, expel, eject
British informal sloosh
1.4 [no object, with adverbial of direction] (Of an object) move suddenly and unpredictably: he got his glove on the ball but it squirted away...
- First a shot slammed against the crossbar then a corner to the back post was met by Lee Ashworth, who appeared to head ball and post simultaneously, with the ball squirting agonisingly outside.
- More often than not it finished with the ball squirting forward in contact, whereupon Ronan O'Gara, with the breeze at his back, would send them downfield again.
- A scrum to Hills on their own 30-metre line was pushed back by the Selby forwards, who generally had the measure of their opponents, but somehow the ball squirted out on the Wheatley side.
2Transmit (information) in highly compressed or speeded-up form: radio equipment could squirt a million words from one continent to another...
- The base-station takes programming, digitises it, squirts it over the WLAN to wherever you happen to be sitting with your LocationFree screen.
- Nitro implements and extends 802.11g's protection mechanism to limit CCK traffic on the network while a number of OFDM packets are squirted out on the network.
- For your money, you get the client software that connects your browser to QuikCAT's server, which grabs your email from your ISP, or web pages your browser has requested, compresses the content and then squirts it down the line to you.
noun
1A thin stream or small quantity of liquid squirted from something: a squirt of perfume...
- Instead of spraying with something toxic, try using a squirt of liquid hand wash soap in some water and spray them with this.
- The calamari with a squirt of lemon and a sprinkling of salt was delicious, tender and juicy encased in a light, crispy batter.
- Bubble time - a squirt of baby bath liquid for an older baby will give enough bubbles to liven up bath time.
Synonyms
spurt, jet, spray, spritz, fountain, gush, stream, surge, flow
1.1A small device from which a liquid may be squirted.The present invention is concerned with an oil squirt exhibiting a resiliently bendable nose and being attached to a wall holder in a predetermined supporting position....
- After use, the oil squirt simply can be re-mounted to the wall holder and, at the same time, the nose tip may be introduced into the closure cap held in clamped condition.
2 informal A puny or insignificant person: what did he see in this patronizing little squirt?...
- Who knew the little squirt would be that good at video games?
- I envisioned a young squirt of an elf, say just a sprightly 100 or 200 years, slipping out to meet his miscreant pals, grab a leaf and ride a wind current.
- I can't allow Samuel to be called all the names under the sun and have a squirt of a boy insult me.
Synonyms
impudent person, insignificant person, gnat, insect
informal pipsqueak, twerp
British informal nerd, johnny, squit, whippersnapper, git, plonker
Scottish informal nyaff
North American informal bozo, picayune, pisher, snip, smart mouth
archaic malapert, quean
archaic, informal dandiprat
North American vulgar slang pissant
(squirts) small fry
3A compressed radio signal transmitted at high speed.The squirt signal is a burst of alternating voltage signal....
- The generation of the squirt signal and selection of the string to which it is applied is under the control of the microprocessor unit 54 as has been described.
Derivatives
squirter
- Kids with less powerful squirt guns lobby parents and grandparents for more expensive, more powerful squirters, lest they be too weak to play the game.
- She responded by grabbing a bucket of water and going after the squirters.
- Older children love the mayhem caused by Denis the Menace, who appears with a water squirter at regular intervals to drench Barney and his friends and any children that get too close!
Origin
Middle English (as a verb): imitative.