squelch

/ˈskwɛlt͡ʃ/

squelch verb: to halt, stop, eliminate, stamp out, or put down, often suddenly or by force. Also the ellipsis of squelch circuit.

Verb

squelch (third-person singular simple present squelches, present participle squelching, simple past and past participle squelched)

(US, transitive) To halt, stop, eliminate, stamp out, or put down, often suddenly or by force.
- Even the king's announcement could not squelch the rumors.
- Oh 'twas your luck and mine to be squelched.c. 1615–1616, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, “The Nice Valour, or, The Passionate Mad-man”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […]...
Synonyms:

quash
(transitive) To suppress the unwanted hiss or static between received transmissions by adjusting a threshold level for signal strength.
(UK, intransitive) To make a sucking, splashing noise as when walking on muddy ground.
- The mud squelched underfoot; it had been raining all night.
- [After they both fell into the lake.] Reaching the mainland some moments later and squelching back to the house, accompanied by Bobbie, like a couple of Napoleons squelching back from Moscow, [...]1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
(UK, intransitive) To walk or step through a substance such as mud.
- The mud was thick and sticky underfoot, but we squelched through it nonetheless.

squelch (countable and uncountable, plural squelches)

(countable) A squelching sound.
(countable, dated) A heavy blow or fall.
(countable) A kind of electronic beat or sound mainly used in acid house and related music genres.
- Through a process of experimentation the 'acid squelch' sound came forth, which was recorded and passed on to DJ Ron Hardy to play at his Warehouse club.1998, Colin Larkin, The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music, page 91

squelch is also the ellipsis of squelch circuit.

If you deceive us you will be squelched.1858–1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI)...
The party’s dominant right wing squelched not only Sherman’s hopes for an early convention, but may have also put the MLA out of contention for the leadership.1982 December 11, Frances Russell, “Economic performance buoys Pawley’s position”, in The Vancouver Sun (The Weekend Sun), Vancouver, BC...
We believe that Facebook is using privacy as a pretext to squelch research that it considers inconvenient.2021 August 10, Laura Edelson, Damon McCoy, “We Research Misinformation on Facebook. It Just Disabled Our Accounts.”, in The New York...

Verb
third-person singular present	squelches
present participle	squelching
past participle	squelched
past	squelched
Noun
plural	squelches

Unknown. Perhaps a blend of squash + quell + quench. Compare also English squolsh, English squoosh.

What does squelch mean?: Squelch means to halt, stop, eliminate, stamp out, or put down, often suddenly or by force.
How do you use squelch in a sentence?: If you deceive us you will be squelched.
What part of speech is squelch?: Squelch can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce squelch?: Squelch is pronounced /ˈskwɛlt͡ʃ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of squelch?: The past tense of squelch is squelched.

Adapted from Wiktionary: squelch (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-squelch.wav.

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