squat
v.v. to sit with your knees bent and your bottom close to the ground. You also use this word when someone lives in an empty building without permission.
v. to crouch close to the ground by bending the knees fully. Also refers to the act of occupying an uninhabited building or land without legal title or payment of rent.
He had to squat down to tie his shoelaces.
The group decided to squat in the abandoned warehouse until the city provided better housing options.
During the power lifting competition, she managed to squat twice her body weight, demonstrating exceptional lower-body strength and stability.
From Middle English squatten, from Old French esquatir, escatir (“compress, press down, lay flat, crush”), from es- (“ex-”) + quatir (“press down, flatten”), from Vulgar Latin *coactire (“press together, force”), from Latin coāctus, perfect passive participle of cōgō (“force together, compress”). The sense “nothing” may be the source or a derivation of diddly-squat.
From Latin squatina.
The verb is intransitive when describing the physical posture or the act of illegal occupation.