Crossword clues for squatting
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Squat \Squat\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Squatted; p. pr. & vb. n. Squatting.] [OE. squatten to crush, OF. esquater, esquatir (cf. It. quatto squat, cowering), perhaps fr. L. ex + coactus, p. p. of cogere to drive or urge together. See Cogent, Squash, v. t.]
To sit down upon the hams or heels; as, the savages squatted near the fire.
To sit close to the ground; to cower; to stoop, or lie close, to escape observation, as a partridge or rabbit.
To settle on another's land without title; also, to settle on common or public lands.
Wiktionary
n. The act or general practice of occupying a building or land illegally. vb. (present participle of squat English)
WordNet
v. sit on one's heels; "In some cultures, the women give birth while squatting"; "The children hunkered down to protect themselves from the sandstorm" [syn: crouch, scrunch, scrunch up, hunker, hunker down]
be close to the earth, or be disproportionately wide; "The building squatted low"
occupy (a dwelling) illegally
n. exercising by repeatedly assuming a squatting position; strengthens the leg muscles [syn: knee bend, squatting]
a small worthless amount; "you don't know jack" [syn: jack, diddly-squat, diddlysquat, diddly-shit, diddlyshit, diddly, diddley, shit]
the act of assuming or maintaining a squatting position [syn: squatting]
adj. short and thick; as e.g. having short legs and heavy musculature; "some people seem born to be square and chunky"; "a dumpy little dumpling of a woman"; "dachshunds are long lowset dogs with drooping ears"; "a little church with a squat tower"; "a squatty red smokestack"; "a stumpy ungainly figure" [syn: chunky, dumpy, low-set, squatty, stumpy]
having a low center of gravity; built low to the ground [syn: underslung]
See squat
Wikipedia
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land–or a building, usually residential—that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use.
Author Robert Neuwirth suggested in 2004 that there were one billion squatters globally. He forecasts there will be two billion by 2030 and three billion by 2050. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement."
Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or to provide housing.
In Australian history, a squatter was typically a man, either a free settler or ex- convict, who occupied a large tract of Crown land in order to graze livestock. Initially often having no legal rights to the land, they gained its usage by being the first (and often the only) Europeans in the area. Eventually, the term Squattocracy, a play on "aristocracy", developed to refer to some of these squatters.
Usage examples of "squatting".
Up and up the dreadful threat would fly, booming and echoing through all the narrow, dark and twisty flues, until it found out Barnacle, exactly as Mister Roberts had divined, squatting in some sooty nook and, if there was room enough to move his arms, a-picking of his nose.
There was Aylward squatting cross-legged in his shirt, while he scrubbed away at his chain-mail brigandine, whistling loudly the while.
He rose and walked around the brindled heifer, squatting down and squinting at her tail.
Once he was riding the Metrorail as Monkey Joethat is, dressed as a monkey and squatting on his haunches like a monkey and occasionally making noises like a monkeywhen he was busted for wearing a mask in a public place.
I ran through the hootch, slamming open the back screen door, Mai was there, squatting in the Vietnamese fashion, scrubbing at a wet flight suit with one hand.
But then I took the precaution, just in case her excitement exceeded her secret willingness to play the rules of my little game for her own masochistic benefit, of tucking the tweezers and plume into the pocket of my robe, squatting down, and taking the felt belt of my robe out and binding it fast around her right ankle, with the other end drawn round and round a metal ring set into the floor.
As we retraced our steps I glanced over my shoulder and saw him squatting on the mastaba, still as a glittering life-sized statue.
The next Mong, who had been waiting patiently, squatting with his hands bound behind him, spat in contempt and moved, into place at the edge of the ditch.
Another, squatting in the black shadows of a stalled mosso, plucked blindly at the darkness.
And when at last they reached the trench, those farthest on the left of the advancing Britishers heard a machine gun sputter suddenly before them and saw a huge lion leap over the German parados with the body of a screaming Hun soldier between his jaws and vanish into the shadows of the night, while squatting upon a traverse to their left was Tarzan of the Apes with a machine gun before him with which he was raking the length of the German trenches.
Around it were tethered scores of the wild, shaggy ponies and the interior was lit by smoky paraffin lamps and crowded with rank upon rank of squatting warriors.
Her hull rode high in the water, and the shadows of her cutched sails swept fleetly over the workmen squatting on quays or thrumming up the planks to the storehouses, humping barrels of Icelandic cod or sacks of English wool.
It rose into the air on a quintet of delicate legs on which it had been squatting.
There were so many things I had never seen: a lofty aqueduct arching over a steep valley, canals with barges being towed along them by patient horses, a great cathedral squatting amongst the little rooves of a town like a huge beast, and so much more.
First he had thought he was going to puke, then he thought he might die, then he had found himself inside one of those kaleidoscopes, then they spent forever squatting on the bed and staring at each other to the tune of some kind of sci-fi flic music, during all of which the treacherous schlong which had gotten him into this mess in the first place remained limp as the proverbial wet noodle.