squat, verb intransitive
- Origin:
- EnglishShow more Special sense of general English squat ‘to settle upon new, uncultivated, or unoccupied land without any legal title and without the payment of rent’ (OED).
1. Of a Black person in a rural area: to live on White-owned land as a labour-tenant or rent-paying tenant.
1936 Cambridge Hist. of Brit. Empire VIII. 803Agricultural labour is of two types, wage-earners paid in cash or partly or wholly in kind, and labour-tenants, giving service for the privilege of ‘squatting’ with their families.
2. To live in a self-built shack (either as a rent-paying tenant or with no authorization) on land which one does not own or which is in an area in which one does not have a legal right to live.
1986 M. Badela in City Press 20 Apr. 2Judge Kroon said the families were ‘squatting’ on white land bordering the Langa township.
1988 F. Khashane in Pace May 39While bureaucrats bungle, squatters squat and vandals vandalise, our..sports stars of the future..waste their talents in the back yards and wastelands of Soweto.
to live on White-owned land as a labour-tenant or rent-paying tenant.
To live in a self-built shack (either as a rent-paying tenant or with no authorization) on land which one does not own or which is in an area in which one does not have a legal right to live.
- Derivatives:
- Hence squatting verbal noun.1949 E. Hellmann Handbk on Race Rel. 248The City Council..declared that it would not have its hand forced by lawlessness, knowing..that capitulation would be an invitation to organize further squatting.
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