squat
• verb (squatted, squatting) 1 crouch or sit with the knees bent and the heels close to the bottom or thighs. 2 unlawfully occupy an uninhabited building or area of land. • adjective (squatter, squattest) short or low, and disproportionately broad or wide. • noun 1 a squatting position or movement. 2 a building occupied by squatters. 3 an act of squatting in an uninhabited building. — ORIGIN Old French esquatir ‘flatten’, from Latin cogere ‘compel’.
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