[Altered form of QUITCH sb.1 See also SCUTCH sb.3]
1. Couch-grass, Triticum repens; = COUCH sb. 2.
1785. Young’s Annals Agric., IV. 415. A small close,… fuller I think of squitch than any field I had ever seen before.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 564. Couch, or what in many districts is better known by the name squitch, is a weed that is highly injurious to wheat crops.
1851–. in general dial. use (E. D. D.).
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 26 May, 5/1. The time to burn rubbish is after the stubbles have been broken up, and the land cleaned of squitch and other weed.
attrib. 1846. Landor, Exam. Shaks., Wks. II. 265. Two or three crops a year of that rank squitch-grass which it has become the fashion of late to call the people.
2. Applied to other plants of similar growth or habit, esp. to certain species of Agrostis (see quots.).
1792. Young’s Ann. Agric., XVII. 38. Squitch, Agrostis vulgaris.
1796. Withering, Brit. Pl. (ed. 3), II. 131. The 2d. 3d. and 4th [varieties of Agrostis alba], constitute the greater part of what is called squitch in light arable lands. In some places it is called white squitch, to distinguish it from the Agrostis nigra, and stolonifera, which are called black squitch, or couch.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1090/1. Squitch,… Agrostis stolonifera.
