Butternut squash, Cucurbita moschata. A pile of butternut squash in a field. One squash has been sliced open to display the interior.
3 September 2021
Squash is actually two words, with two distinct etymologies. It can be a class of vegetable, the American gourds of the genus Cucurbita. Or it can be a verb meaning to squeeze, press, or crush. And from this verb comes several nouns referring to things that are squeezed, as in the drink known as lemon squash or the racket game, which uses a soft, rubber ball that can be squeezed.
The name for the vegetable comes from the Narragansett asquutasquash (raw plants that can be eaten). Asq- means raw, and -ash is a plural ending. The Narragansett word is recorded in English as early as 1634, in William Wood’s book, New Englands Prospect:
They seldome or never make bread of their Indian corne, but seeth it whole like beanes, eating three or foure cornes with a mouthfull of fish or flesh, sometimes eating meate first, and cornes after, filling chinkes with their broth. In Summer, when their corne is spent, Isquoutersquashes is their best bread, a fruite like a young Pumpion.
The clipped form squash can be seen as early as 1643, in Roger Williams’s documentation of the Narragansett language, A Key into the Language of America:
Askútasquash, their Vine aples, which the English from them call Squashes about the bignesse of Apples of severall colours, a sweet, light wholesome refreshing.
The other squash, the verb meaning to squeeze or crush, is older. It comes from the Anglo-Norman esquasser (to shatter, smash, obliterate), which is found in that language from the twelfth century. The Anglo-Norman comes from the Italian squassare, which in turn is from the Latin exquassare (to batter, weaken). The verb to quash is from the same root, but has developed as somewhat different sense in English, meaning to suppress or put down.
The verb to squash is documented by the mid sixteenth century, when Thomas Lupsette uses it in a 1542 translation of a sermon by John Chrysostom:
In these and such like thinges, men wepe and bewaile theyr wretchednes and mysfortune: and great pitie is taken of them that be in such case, and with moche lamentation they complayne, sayinge amongest them selfe: O what an hurt or losse hath he suffered; all his substaunce and goodes were sodeynly taken away. Of some other is sayd: He is extremely sycke, phisitions haue gyuen hym ouer, there is no hope in hym of lyfe. For some other that lye in prison is great mone made: for other that be outlawed and banysshed theyr countrey. for other that be plucked into bondage from their fredome: for other that be spoyled of their ennemies, that be in thrauldome, that be throughe sea wrackes distroyed, through fyre bourned, through ruines squashed.
The verb also produced a noun, meaning something soft, that can be squeezed, and in particular an unripe, soft peapod. Shakespeare used this noun several times in his plays, the earliest being his c.1595 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in an exchange between Bottom and Peaseblossom in Act 3, Scene 1:
Bot. Your name honest Gentleman?
Peas. Pease blossome.
Bot. I pray you commend mee to mistresse Squash, your mother, and to master Peascod your father. Good master Pease-blossome, I shal desire you of more acquaintance to.
A game of squash being played in The Hague, The Netherlands. Two men with rackets on a squash court.
The game of squash, a racket sport, was invented at the English public school (i.e., private school for the Americans reading this) Harrow in the nineteenth century. It takes its name from the soft, squeezable ball used in the game. I have found the name of the game mentioned as early as 1880, but there are undoubtedly earlier uses to be found. That 1880 book is Hugh Russell at Harrow: A Sketch of School Life, but since the book is a reminiscence of school life by an adult, the school slang in it is probably a few decades older. One passage reads:
Another pastime in which he indulged a good deal was “squash-rackets.” There was a very good “squash-court” attached to the house, and whenever he could get a “place,” Russell was to be seen there.
And the book contains a glossary of Harrow slang, of which the relevant entry reads:
SQUASH—(1) Rackets played with a soft india-rubber ball.
(2) A “scrimmage” at football.
From Harrow, the game of squash spread to other schools.
The football, i.e., rugby, sense of the word has faded from use, but one can find it in nineteenth century sources about the game. What they called a squash is known today as a scrum.
Sources:
Anglo-Norman Dictionary, 2007, s.v. esquasser.
Hugh Russell at Harrow: A Sketch of School Life. London: Provost, 1880, 23, 146. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Lupsette, Thomas, trans. A Sermon of Saint Chrysostome. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1542, sig. A.4.v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
O’Brien, Frank Waabu. New England Algonquian Language Revival. Accessed 3 September 2021.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. squash, n.1, squash, v.1, squash, n.2, and squanter-squash, n.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, (First Folio, Brandeis University). London: Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623, 3.1, 153 (mislabeled as 151).
Williams, Roger. A Key into the Language of America. London: Gregory Dexter, 1643, 103. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Wood, William. New Englands Prospect. London: Thomas Cotes for John Bellamie, 1634, 67. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Photo credits: Vegetable squash, George Chernilevsky, 2012, public domain image; squash game, Jens Buurgaard Nielsen, 2006, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.