[f. as prec.]
1. Mean, contemptible, insignificant, trifling.
a. Of persons. Now dial.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse, Wks. (Grosart), II. 92. Our Players are not as the players beyond sea, a sort of squirting baudie Comedians.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., V. iv. 2174. Thou and thy squirting boy Endimion, Lies slauering still vpon a lawlesse couch.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Cl. Vind. (1677), 107. Not such a squirting Scribe as this, that’s troubled with the Rickets, and makes penny-worths of History.
1719. Boyer, Dict. Royal, II. A squirting (or pitiful) Fellow, un pauvre homme, un petit genie.
1803. T. Creevey, in C. Papers (1904), I. 14. Such pitiful, squirting politicians as this accursed Apothecary.
1887. S. Cheshire Gloss., 370. A little squirtin’ homnithom [= dwarf].
† b. Of things. Obs. rare.
1589. ? Lyly, Pappe w. Hatchet, E b. These fellowes can abide no pompe, and yet you see they cannot be without a little squirting plate.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Love’s Pilgr., I. i. Did I or Mr. Dean of Civil … Ere reach our dignities in cuerpo, thinkst thou? In squirting hose and doublet?
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., 185. Their noblest mark is dieting a brace Of handsome Nags, to run a squirting race.
2. Issuing in a squirt or jet.
a. 1694. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xxv. 211. On condition that he should instantly with his squirting Spittle inluminate his Mustaches.
3. That ejects a jet-like stream of liquid.
1735. Clare, Motion Fluids, 63. The common squirting Fire-Engine … is the Frame of a Lifting-pump, wrought by … Leavers.
1744. Desaguliers, Exper. Philos., II. 510. Which sort of Engines throwing the Water by Spirts are commonly, and not improperly, called Squirting Engines.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xxxviii. We shall never find them to-night amongst all these squirting funnels, squirrel-cages, and rabbit-holes.
1833. Chalmers, in Hanna, Mem. (1851), III. xix. 375. Princess Victoria,… when asked on her visiting Chatsworth some months ago, which of all the things she had seen she liked best,… said it was the squirting tree.
4. Squirting cucumber, the spirting cucumber, Ecbalium agreste († Momordica Elaterium).
1802. Pinkerton, Mod. Geogr., I. 278. The Momordica elaterium, squirting cucumber,… occurs in a truly wild state … in Provence and Languedoc.
1849. Balfour, Man. Bot., § 872. The Wild or Squirting Cucumber is so called on account of the force with which its seeds are expelled when ripe.
1898. Rev. Brit. Pharm., 4. There are other articles in this category—e.g., chalk, cevadilla, and squirting-cucumber.
