Also 7, 9 dial., squob, 8 squobb, squabb. [Of uncertain origin: cf. QUAB sb.1 and Sw. dial. sqvabb loose fat flesh, sqvabba a fat woman, sqvabbig flabby, Norw. dial. skvabb a soft wet mass.]
† 1. A raw, inexperienced person. Obs.
1640. Brome, Sparagus Gard., II. ii. I warrant you, is he a trim youth? We must make him one Iacke, ’tis such a squab as thou never sawest; such a lumpe, we may make what we will of him.
2. A newly hatched, unfledged or very young bird. Also fig. of a person.
1682. Shadwell, Medal John Bayes, 69. Should all thy borrow’d plumes we from the tear, How truly Poet Squab would’st thou appear!
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Squab,… a new Hatcht Chick.
1736. W. Ellis, New Exper., 95. The earliest young ones [i.e., goslings] are commonly sent to London in March,… called squabs.
1838. Holloway, Prov. Dict., Squad, an unfledged bird.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xix. (1856), 146. Some of the men succeeded in reaching the squabs [= young auks] by introducing their arms.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., v. At the bottom of each [pie] a squab or young cormorant.
b. spec. A young pigeon.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lix. 234. Pigeons, Squobbs, and Squeakers.
1765. Treat. Dom. Pigeons, 50. This article, and the young squabs, will nearly, if not quite, maintain your Pigeons in food.
1854. Poultry Chron., I. 573/2. It is generally considered that a cock [pigeon] homes quickest when driving to nest, and a hen when she is feeding squabs.
1867. Augusta Wilson, Vashti, xxvi. The gale blew down my pigeon-house and mashed all my squabs.
1902. R. W. Chambers, Maids of Paradise, i. Among which generations of pigeons had built nests and raised countless broods of squealing squabs.
c. A young rabbit. rare–0.
1838. Holloway, Prov. Dict., Squab,… a young rabbit, before it is covered with hair.
3. A short fat person.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Squab, a very fat, truss Person.
1710. Pope, Lett. (1735), I. 152. We shall then see that the Prudes of this World … are naturally as arrant Squabs as those that went more loose.
1791. O’Keeffe, Wild Oats, IV. i. Your figure is the most happy comedy squab I ever saw.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, V. i. ¶ 29. A fat laughing squab of a woman.
1823. Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), I. 240. He is a fat, sallow squab of a man.
1897. G. Bartram, People of Clopton, vii. 201. A great fat squab loike Lucy.
4. A sofa, ottoman or couch.
1664. Verney Mem. (1907), II. 211. For a drawing-rome i should have 2 squobs, & 6 turned woden chars of the haith of the longe seates.
1689. Lond. Gaz., No. 2495/4. The Covering of a large Squab, the upper side of Cloth of silver, the Ground white and toward a Filamot.
a. 1710. Pope, Imit., Artemisia, 10. On her large squab you find her spread, Like a fat corpse upon a bed.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. 178. Under this I had made me a Squab or Couch, with the Skins of the Creatures I had kill’d, and with other soft Things.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh., II. 355. Squab, a couch, common in most farm ‘houses.’
1867. Morn. Star, 1 Jan., 2. In consequence of the fullness of the house the deceased was compelled to sleep on a sofa or squab in the bar.
1892. M. C. F. Morris, Yorksh. Folk Talk, 377. The squab is a roughly-made couch or long-settle with cushions, differing from the ordinary long-settle in that it has one arm instead of two.
5. A thick or soft cushion, esp. one serving to cover the seat of a chair or sofa.
1687. Miége, Gt. Fr. Dict., A Squab, or very soft Cushion, coussin fort moû.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), A Squab, a soft stuffed Cushion or Stool.
1730. Inventory R. Woolley’s Goods (1732), 8. 3 Pair of Window Curtains and 3 Squabs of the same.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, VI. 158. An old broken-bottomed cane couch, without a squab, or coverlid, sunk at one corner [etc.].
1819. H. Busk, Vestriad, IV. 1051. Bolstering his head with squabs, his mind with hope.
1839. Dickens, Nickleby, x. Chairs, with turned legs and green chintz squabs to match the curtains.
1881. G. Macdonald, Mary Marston, xxxvii. She was poking the little fists into the squab of the sofa.
transf. 1860. Mayhew, Upper Rhine, v. 272. The apparatus appears to be more like a large squab of a watch-pocket.
b. A cushion forming part of the inside fittings of a carriage.
1794. W. Felton, Carriages (1801), I. 145. A squab, or sleeping cushion;… occasionally added to the insides of those carriages, for the head or shoulders to incline against.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., vii. He looked into the carriage, turned up the squabs.
1888. Farr & Thrupp, Coach Trimming, vi. 75. Back Squabs are not usually fastened at the sides, and it is the custom to make the sides curving out from the straight line, that the squab may not when fixed appear narrower across the middle.
6. attrib. a. In sense 2, as squab-condition, -gull, -pigeon, -virtuoso.
1686. F. Spence, trans. Varillas’ Ho. Medicis, 227. He nurs’d up these Squab-virtuoso’s in Literature almost from the very Cradle.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, I. iii. 219. To pickle Sparrows or Squab-Pigeons.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxiv. 320. The squab-gull of Hans Island has a well-earned reputation … for its delicious juices.
1877. Newton, in Encycl. Brit., VI. 407. The young [of the cormorant] … remain for some time in the squab-condition.
b. In senses 4 and 5, as squab chair, cushion, -seat, sofa.
1837. Marryat, Dog Fiend, xxiv. Seated on the squab sofa.
1849. Alb. Smith, Pottleton Legacy (1854), 263. There were squab seats all round the room.
1860. All Year Round, No. 63. 306. An old mahogany Empire arm-chair, with squab cushion.
1864. N. & Q., 3rd Ser. VI. 136/2. Upholsterers make sofa and couch seats of three kinds, called respectively squab-seats, spring seats, and stuffed tight seats.
1867. O. W. Holmes, Guardian Angel, ii. Nurse Byloe let herself drop into a flaccid squab chair.
