Other forms: squeezed, squeezing, squeezes
Squeeze means to press something hard from both sides. A lemon over fish, the last of the toothpaste out of the tube, someone's hand held tight for a second to say you are there.
Squeeze also means to fit into a space that is barely big enough: you squeeze into old jeans, squeeze past a parked car, squeeze four people onto a three-seat sofa. Time behaves the same way — the dentist squeezes you in on Friday afternoon. As a noun it is both the small amount pressed out, a squeeze of lemon in the sauce, and the tightness itself, as in it was a tight squeeze in the back of the car. Money gets squeezed too, and a squeeze on wages or household budgets is a spell when there is not enough to go round. Mind the spelling: s-q-u-e-e-z-e, ending in a z sound.
1verbsqueezeTo press something firmly, especially from both sides.
“She squeezed the sponge until the water ran out.”
Patternsqueeze + noun (a lemon, a tube, sb's hand) · squeeze sth out / into · a squeeze of lemon · squeeze in
2verbpastTo get into, through or past a space that is only just big enough.
“We squeezed through the gap in the hedge.”
3verbfindTo find room or time for something when there is barely any.
“The doctor squeezed him in at the end of the afternoon.”
4nounsmallA small amount pressed out of something.
“Finish the dish with a squeeze of lime.”
5nounperiodA period when money is short because of pressure on prices or pay.
“The squeeze on household budgets lasted two years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
squEEze → two e's pressed tight together
Look at the two e's in the middle, pressed tight together — exactly what you do to a friend's hand before a hard exam.
Squeeze has no settled family tree. It appears around 1600 as squize, probably a reworking of the older quease, which runs back through Middle English queisen to Old English cwysan, to crush or squeeze. Some think the sound itself did the work, since the neighbours are full of similar noises — Dutch kwetsen, German quetschen, Swedish kvasa.
Old English
cwȳsan — to crush, squeeze
Middle English
queisen — to squeeze
English, today
squeeze
Built from
From earlier squize, squise (whence also dialectal English squizzen and squeege), first attested around 1600, further origin unknown; probably an alteration of quease (which is attested since 1550), from Middle English queisen (“to squeeze”), from Old English cwȳsan (“to crush, squeeze”), itself also of unknown origin, perhaps imitative (compare Swedish qväsa, kväsa (“to squeeze, bruise, crush; quell”), Dutch kwetsen (“to injure, hurt”), German quetschen (“to squeeze”)). Or, a blend of obsolete squiss (“to squeeze”) (whence also squash and squish) with quease. Compare also French esquicher from Old Occitan esquichar (“to press, squeeze”). The slang expression "to put the squeeze on (someone or something)", meaning "to exert influence", is from 1711. The baseball term "squeeze play" is first recorded 1905. "Main squeeze" ("most important person") is attested from 1896, the specific meaning "one's sweetheart, lover" is attested in 1970s. The nonstandard strong forms squoze and squozen, attested dialectally since at least the mid-19th century, are by analogy with freeze.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA