Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Easily nauseated or sickened.
- adj. Nauseated.
- adj. Easily shocked or disgusted.
- adj. Excessively fastidious or scrupulous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Easily disgusted or nauseated; hence, fastidious; scrupulous; particular; nice to excess in questions of propriety or taste; finical: as, a squeamish stomach; squeamish notions.
- Qualmish; slightly nauseated; sickish: as, a squeamish feeling.
- Synonyms Dainty, Fastidious, etc. (see nice), overnice, straitlaced.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having a stomach that is easily turned or nauseated; hence, nice to excess in taste; fastidious; easily disgusted; apt to be offended at trifling improprieties.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. excessively fastidious and easily disgusted
Etymologies
- Middle English squeimous, alteration of Anglo-Norman escoymous.
Examples
“Yet rejection of DIY killing and eating pet animals is increasingly cast as "squeamish" - shirking a necessary evil like cleaning up vomit instead of shirking voluntary and unnecessary violence.”
“I am more than a little squeamish, which is odd given my reading taste.”
“Her own journey from a suburban childhood to college and a prestigious law school to urban hero in a relentless job that is admittedly not for the squeamish is a saga of dawning awareness of the dimensions of rape and what it has done to us as a society.”
“Otter, who certainly could not be called squeamish, hastened to descend the rock.”
“Sorry if I sound like some kind of squeamish woman.”
“Don't worry, I will explain why they are so "squeamish" soon...”
“Certainly there are moral and ethical as well as legal implications in this case but I am at a loss to see why anyone should feel "squeamish" about the content of the report, nor do I see how the content of the report would constitute "a bit too much sex education" for you of all people.”
“It is also clear that the SS wanted to have a completely free hand — free from observation, much less interference, by possibly "squeamish" elements.”
Barbarossa
“Ms. Prada reacts with a kind of squeamish delight to the banality of glamour.”
“Google and NSA are entering into a secret agreement that could impact the privacy of millions of users of Google's products and services around the world," the centre's executive director Marc Rotenberg said he felt "squeamish" about the possibility of information sharing between Google and the government, and was sceptical about the NSA's ability to help protect the company's infrastructure.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘squeamish’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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New Words
No definite conception of these words.
reggaeton, fugacious, astray, artillery, quietism, heteronomy, plebeian, remit, hypostasize, discountenance, rictus, wail and 39 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 85 more...
pqnga If you feel squeamish about posting something—don’t. Wait a day or two, and think it over. (Gretchen Rubin) Apr 8, 2011