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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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SQUASH, v.t. [L.] To crush; to beat or press into pulp or a flat mass.
SQUASH, n.
An American animal allied to the
weasel.
[Obs.] Goldsmith. A plant and its
fruit of the genus Cucurbita, or gourd kind.
* The species are much confused. The long-neck squash is called Cucurbita verrucosa, the Barbary or China squash, C. moschata, and the great winter squash, C. maxima, but the distinctions are not clear. Squash beetle (Zoöl.), a small American beetle (Diabrotica, or Galeruca vittata) which is often abundant and very injurious to the leaves of squash, cucumber, etc. It is striped with yellow and black. The name is applied also to other allied species. -- Squash bug (Zoöl.), a large black American hemipterous insect (Coreus, or Anasa, tristis) injurious to squash vines. To beat or press into pulp or a flat mass; to crush.
Something soft and easily crushed; especially, an unripe pod of
pease.
Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 't is a peascod. Shak. Hence, something unripe or soft; -- used in
contempt.
"This squash, this gentleman."
Shak. A sudden fall of a heavy, soft body; also,
a shock of soft bodies.
Arbuthnot.
My fall was stopped by a terrible squash. Swift. A game much like
rackets, played in a walled court with soft rubber balls and bats like
tennis rackets.
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