Word.ws English Dictionary

squab

UK/ˈskwɒb/US/ˈskwɑb/

squab noun: a young dove or pigeon.

Noun

squab (countable and uncountable, plural squabs)

  1. (attributive, sometimes) A young dove or pigeon.
    Synonyms:
    piper, squeaker
  2. (attributive, sometimes) A young chicken.
    Synonyms:
    chick
  3. (attributive, sometimes) A young rook.
  4. (uncountable) The meat of a young dove or pigeon, typically under four weeks old, used as food.
    • Squab may be consumed by ripping the bird apart with your hands and sucking the meat from the bones.2022, Jennifer Egan, The Candy House, Corsair, page 207
  5. (countable) A thick cushion, especially a flat one covering the seat of a chair or sofa.
    • a. 1744, Alexander Pope (imitating Earl of Dorset), Artemisia, 1795, Robert Anderson (editor), A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, page 86,
      On her large ſquab you find her ſpread, / Like a fat corpſe upon a bed, / That lies and ſtinks in ſtate.
    • [H]erds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house, [...] punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touzling the feather-beds, opening and shutting all the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of the drapery and linen...1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “Retribution”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 591
  6. (countable) A person of a short, fat figure.
    • Gorgonius sits abdominous and wan, / Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan:a. 1800, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error”, in Poems of William Cowper, Esq, published 1824, page 28

Verb

squab (third-person singular simple present squabs, present participle squabbing, simple past and past participle squabbed)

  1. (obsolete) To fall plump; to strike at one dash, or with a heavy stroke.
  2. (transitive) To furnish with squabs, or cushions.
  3. (transitive) To stuff thickly and sew through, the stitches being concealed by buttons, etc.

Adjective

squab (comparative more squab, superlative most squab)

  1. Fat; thick; plump; bulky.
    • Nor the squab daughter nor the wife were nice.1712, Thomas Betterton, The Miller of Trompington
    • So on his Nightmare through the evening fog / Flits the squab fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog […].1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 93
  2. Unfledged; unfeathered.
    • broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young squab pigeons precipitated from above1836, Richard King, Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean
  3. Clumsy.
  4. Curt; abrupt.
  5. Shy; coy.

Adverb

squab (not comparable)

  1. (slang) With a heavy fall; plump.
    • The eagle took the tortoise up into the air, and dropped him down, squab, upon a rock.1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC

squab meaning in Urdu, Arabic and Vietnamese

squab in Urdu

بھدا, موٹا, نوخیز, شرمیلا

squab in Arabic

young dove or pigeon
زُغْلُول zuḡlūl, جَوْزَل jawzal

squab in Vietnamese

meat of a young dove or pigeon
thịt bồ câu

Synonyms of squab

Forms of squab

Noun
pluralsquabs
Verb
third-person singular presentsquabs
present participlesquabbing
past participlesquabbed
pastsquabbed
Adjective
comparativemore squab
superlativemost squab

Origin of squab

Unknown. Possibly related to dialectal Swedish skvabb (“fatty, flabby”). First attested in the 17th century.

Words formed from squab

Phrases with squab

Words that rhyme with squab

20 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about squab

What does squab mean?
Squab means a young dove or pigeon.
What is squab in Urdu?
Squab in Urdu is بھدا, موٹا, نوخیز. See Squab meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is squab?
Squab can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce squab?
Squab is pronounced /ˈskwɒb/ (UK).
What is the plural of squab?
The plural of squab is squabs.

Words near squab in the dictionary

  1. SQRRR
  2. sqrt
  3. SQS
  4. SQT
  5. squa
  6. squab
  7. squab chick
  8. squab chicks
  9. squab pie
  10. squab pies
  11. squabash

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: squab (page history and authors); squab (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-squab.ogg.

Cite this entry: “squab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/squab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.