a form of strappado in which the victim, with arms bound behind and feet heavily weighted, was jerked up and down at the end of a rope passed under the arms.
Origin: 1725–35; < Italian squass(are) to shake severely (< Vulgar Latin *exquassāre;see squash1) + -ation
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.