squitter

From squit (“to squirt”) +‎ -er. Compare skitter.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskwɪ.tə/, /ˈskwɪ.tɚ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪtə(ɹ)

squitter (countable and uncountable, plural squitters)

1. (archaic) Watery stool.
2. (communications engineering) A random broadcast of data occurring either intentionally or in response to noise.
   • 2011, Lionel K Anderson, Virtual Radar - Using the SBS-1er and Basestation Software, page 119:

     Mlat triangulates a moving aircraft's position from a number of fixed ground stations at known locations receiving and time stamping an aircraft-transponder squitter.

• The communications term is used most often in the context of aircraft radar transponders sending data to air traffic control facilities via a 1090 MHz transponder transmitter.

squitter (third-person singular simple present squitters, present participle squittering, simple past and past participle squittered)

1. To create watery stool; to squirt (stool).

   Ann has norovirus, she's spent the entire day squittering on the toilet.

2. To squirt (in general).
   • 1999 July 6, Colin Channer, Waiting in Vain, One World, →ISBN, page 35:

     A cinnamon candle, thick and brown, squittered light across the room, dropped some on her belly, where it pooled in her navel and spread down to her pubis, coating the hairs, making them feel like starchy grains of rice when she touched them  […]

   • 2014 January 30, John Sladek, John Sladek SF Gateway Omnibus: The Reproductive System, The Muller-Fokker Effect, Tik-Tok, Gateway, →ISBN:

     […] lunging his knife into another can. It squittered black and grey curds. Later Cal would see how the system incorporated these exploding cans into a sort of 'internal combustion' engine, using an old auto cylinder block, reloading eight cans after every revolution.

3. To skitter or scutter, to move quickly.
   • 2011 April 10, Kevin Rushby, Hunting Pirate Heaven: In Search of Lost Pirate Utopias, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN:

     Tiny zebra fish squittered away through the beds of flowers and out into huge lakes that had appeared overnight. The cycads had thrown off their load of curious egg-like pods and they floated in like some alien seed released from the deep. The […]

   • 2011 June 21, Phil Rickman, The Bones of Avalon: A Novel, Macmillan + ORM, →ISBN, page 292:

     ... tin men and women roiled and squittered like demonic insects. Or the maggots Fyche claimed to see on the side of the tor, writhing around my feet and ankles as I walked endlessly amid the dream hills around Glastonbury, lured by the distant chinging of church […]

   • 2012 February 7, Christine Blevins, The Turning of Anne Merrick, Penguin, →ISBN, page 301:

     "I tried to stop her, but she squittered right past." "My apologies , sentry. Rest assured, nothing short of a round from your musket could stop my sister when she has her mind set on plaguing me. You can return to your post."

   • 2017 February 17, Steve Vernon, Do-Overs and Detours: Eighteen Eerie Tales, Steve Vernon, page 54:

     A silverfish squittered out across a shelf like a fast running inkblot on legs. Texas Jack Page squashed it under his thumb, murdering it neatly between a hand bound copy of HP Lovecraft's The Outsider written in a murderer's blood and the rough […]

   • 2022 August 4, Bill Manhire, Six by Six: Short Stories by New Zealand’s Best Writers, Victoria University Press, →ISBN:

     I stopped […] looked sideways […] then turned back, dried off all four tits and let the cow out into the race where, taking the legrope with her, she squittered off wild in the eyes.

4. (communications engineering) To broadcast squitter.
5. To waste; to squander.
   • 2012, J.R. Russell, The Devil's Monk: Guardian of the Book, Skycat Publications, →ISBN, page 29:

     the kiln had consumed half the cross and squittered half a fortune.

• squitterwit
• squitterbook
• squitterbreeches

• quitters