squishy

From squish +‎ -y.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskwɪʃi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɪʃi

squishy (comparative squishier or more squishy, superlative squishiest or most squishy)

1. (of an object or substance) Yielding easily to pressure; very soft; especially, soft and wet, as mud.
   • 2009, Jamie Carie, Wind Dancer, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 144:

     Finished with head and hair, the women pulled her up the bank to wash her body, the soft squishy mud registering for the first time on the outer consciousness of Isabelle’s mind.

   • 2015, Andrea Chesman, The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How:

     Bread is either cheap (soft, squishy supermarket loaves) or expensive (artisan bakery loaves).

2. (slang) Used as a term of endearment. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
3. (informal) Subjective or vague.
   • April 14 2022, Delia Cai, “Severance, the New York Times’s Twitter Guidelines, and the Forever Illusion of Work-Life Balance”, in Vanity Fair‎:

     How does the media love Twitter? Let us count the ways: as a tech platform practically indispensable to the work of newsgathering; as a metrics system designating clear numerical value to once-squishy concepts of popularity and esteem; as a gossip-fueled lunchroom of the elites more or less available for public participation; as an arena for duking out industry controversies ranging from #MeToo to opinions about opinion pages.

4. (politics, informal, derogatory) Politically moderate.

• squishiness

squishy (plural squishies)

1. (informal) A squeezable foam toy.