ENGLISH
REFERENCE

absquatulate

v.
C2 Proficiency ab·squat·u·late Slang

v. to steal or take something away by force. It is a very old-fashioned or funny way to describe a robbery.

v. to steal or carry off by force. Archaic in register; primarily used in literary or humorous contexts.


SIMPLE

The thief tried to absquatulate the gold from the museum.

CONTEXTUAL

In the old adventure novel, the villain attempts to absquatulate the royal jewels during the grand ball.

COMPLEX

The author uses the archaic verb absquatulate to lend a sense of historical gravity to the protagonist's desperate attempt to escape the castle with the stolen documents.

Synonyms
Origin

Attested since the 1830s in American English, a jocular mock-Latin word. Blend of abscond + squat + perambulate, as ab- (“away (from)”) (as in abscond) + squat + *-ulate (as in perambulate, properly -ate), hence meaning “get up (from a squat) and depart (quickly)”. The middle portion was perhaps influenced by -le (“(frequentative)”) and the dialectal term squattle (“depart”); compare contemporary skedaddle.

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