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squad

nounverbnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈskwɒd//
  • United States//ˈskwɑd//
  • //ˈskwæd//

A group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members.

noun

  1. 1

    A group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members.

    He assembled a squad of ten to take on the assassin.

  2. 2

    A group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members. A unit of tactical military personnel, or of police officers, usually of about ten members.

    A squad of soldiers ordered them to disperse but instead of doing so they commenced throwing ice and rocks.

  3. 3

    A group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members. A group of potential players from whom a starting team and substitutes are chosen.

  4. 4

    informalA group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members. A collective noun for a group of squid.

    At one point, the 400-ton Calypso was brought to a standstill by a squad of squid which clogged the engines and caused a power failure. Other, highlights included an attack by predatory blue sharks, […]

    The Sea Life Centre retains a squad of squid and such.

    There's several new symbols next to the doorway symbol. Beso pushed all six of them without waiting to see what they brought; like a herd of charging rhinos or rampaging squad of squid. Next best thing though.

    I pulled in as deep a breath as my gag allowed and began relaxing my body. I used a little trick I'd learned in college. I imagined that a friendly squad of squid were massaging every muscle on the bottoms of my feet; the tension began to drain.

  5. 5

    slangOne's friend group, taken collectively; one's peeps.

    anyway, sheʼs resigned herself to hanging out with the squad at uni rather than going manhunting

  6. 6

    Variant of squad truckEllipsis of squad truck.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwṓr Proto-Italic *kʷettwōr Latin quattuor ▲ Latin quadrus Latin quadrōbf.? Latin quadrus Vulgar Latin *exquadrō Italian squadraredeverb. Italian squadra French escouadebor. English squad From French escouade, from Italian squadra (“square”) (whence also French escadre). Doublet of squadra and square.

verb

  1. 1

    To act as part of, or on behalf of, a squad.

    We squad on the fifth of the month.

  2. 2

    To transport by ambulance.

noun

  1. 1

    Sloppy mud.

    The lass ran all among the muck and squad.

    An' she did n't not solidly mean I wur / gawin' that waäy to the bad, Fur the gell was as howry a trollope as / iver traäpes'd i' the squad.

Etymology

Uncertain. Compare squick (“disgust”), squalid (“dirty”) with similar initial sounds.

Forms

plural
squads
past tense
squadded
past participle
squadded
present participle
squadding
third person singular
squads
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).