I first came across quashed more than 20 years ago when I was working at the newspaper in Wilmington, N.C. A sports writer wrote that someone quashed an idea, and we were all aflutter. We'd never heard of quashed, and we all ran to the dictionary.
quash 1 (kwsh)You can see that quash and squash are from the same root. (And that has nothing to do with the vegetable, yuck, yuck, yuck.)
tr.v. quashed, quash·ing, quash·es
To set aside or annul, especially by judicial action.
[Middle English quassen, from Old French casser, quasser, from Medieval Latin quassre, alteration (influenced by quassre, to shatter) of cassre, from Latin cassus, empty, void; see kes- in Indo-European roots.]
quash 2 (kwsh)
tr.v. quashed, quash·ing, quash·es
To put down or suppress forcibly and completely: quash a rebellion.
[Middle English quashen, from Old French quasser, from Medieval Latin quassre, to shatter, from Latin; see squash2.]
squash 2 (skwsh, skwôsh)It's like the difference between flounder and founder. Squash and quash both have their uses. You squash a bug and quash a bill in Congress.
v. squashed, squash·ing, squash·es
v.tr.
1. To beat, squeeze, or press into a pulp or a flattened mass; crush. See Synonyms at crush.
2. To put down or suppress; quash: squash a revolt.
3. To silence or fluster, as with crushing words: squash a heckler.
v.intr.
1. To become crushed, flattened, or pulpy, as by pressure or impact.
2. To move with a splashing or sucking sound, as when walking through boggy ground.
n.
1.
a. The act or sound of squashing.
b. The fact or condition of being squashed.
2. A crushed or crowded mass: a squash of people.
3. Sports A racket game played in a closed walled court with a rubber ball.
4. Chiefly British A citrus-based soft drink.
adv.
With a squashing sound.
[Middle English squachen, from Old French esquasser, from Vulgar Latin *exquassre : Latin ex-, intensive pref.; see ex- + Latin quassre, to shatter, frequentative of quatere, to shake; see kwt- in Indo-European roots.]
squasher n.
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