squid

Etymology

The word is of unknown origin.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Etymonline reports that Klein's sources make it a sailors' variant of squirt, named for the ink the animal jets;^[8][9] Klein derives it from squit, a dialect form of squirt,^[9] and Weekley suggests a sailors' name based on that word, quoting a 1620 record of "squides, a rare kind of fish, at his mouth squirting matter forth like ink".^[10] Partridge likewise refers it to squirt.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

One of the ten-armed marine cephalopods: 1613, in Purchas his Pilgrimage.^[2][3][5] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the word to the late 16th century,^[6][7] Dictionary.com to 1605–15.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The generic use, the squid, is recorded from 1839, and the word without an article, for the animal as bait or food, from before 1862, in Thoreau's Cape Cod.^[2] From 1883 it also named an artificial bait made to look like a squid.^[2] The verb, to fish with squid as bait, is an American word first recorded in Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms of 1859.^[2][5] In the Second World War Squid was the name of a ship-mounted anti-submarine mortar with three barrels (1947), and since the 1940s the noun and the verb described a parachute that holds a stable shape while only partly open.^[2] A lead disc used as the puck in the game of octopush is also called a squid (1969).^[2]

Timeline

• 1613 – a squid, in Purchas.^[2][3]
• 1839 – generic use, the squid.^[2]
• 1859 – verb, to fish with squid as bait (US).^[2][5]
• 1883 – bone-squid, an artificial bait.^[2]
• 1943 – verb, of a parachute.^[2]
• 1947 – an anti-submarine mortar.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fast-swimming marine cephalopod with a long tapering body, two side fins, eight arms and two longer tentacles, and a reduced internal shell.^[5][6][13]
2. The flesh of this animal as food or bait: grilled squid.^[2][5]
3. An artificial lure made to look like a squid.^[5][2]
4. A ship-mounted anti-submarine mortar used in the war of 1939–45.^[2]
5. The stable shape of a parachute that is only partly open.^[2]

Verb

1. To fish with squid as bait, or with a squid lure.^[5][2]
2. Of a parachute, to take a stable shape while only partly open.^[2]

Related words

• squirt

Usage notes

A separate word, SQUID, is an acronym of "superconducting quantum interference device", an instrument for measuring very weak magnetic fields, recorded from 1967.^[2][5][6] In British and Australian slang, squid has meant a pound sterling since 1902, an extension of quid.^[14] In Dorset it was a name of the puffin.^[15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)