squeeze
v.v. to press something firmly from both sides, often with your fingers or hands. You might do this to get juice out of a fruit or to show someone you care with a hug.
v. to apply pressure to something from opposite sides; to compress or extract by force. Often used transitively with a direct object representing the item being compressed.
You need to squeeze the lemon to get the juice out.
The bus was so crowded that we had to squeeze into the back corner to make room for more passengers.
The central bank's decision to raise interest rates was intended to squeeze inflation out of the economy, though critics feared it would also stifle small business growth.
From earlier squize, squise (whence also dialectal English squizzen and squeege), first attested around 1600, further origin uncertain; probably an alteration of quease (which is attested since 1550), from Middle English queisen (“to squeeze”), from Old English cwȳsan (“to crush, squeeze”), itself also of unknown origin, perhaps imitative (compare Swedish qväsa, kväsa (“to squeeze, bruise, crush; quell”), Dutch kwetsen (“to injure, hurt”), German quetschen (“to squeeze”)). Or, a blend of obsolete squiss (“to squeeze”) (whence also squash and squish) with quease. Compare also French esquicher from Old Occitan esquichar (“to press, squeeze”). The slang expression "to put the squeeze on (someone or something)", meaning "to exert influence", is from 1711. The baseball term "squeeze play" is first recorded 1905. "Main squeeze" ("most important person") is attested from 1896, the specific meaning "one's sweetheart, lover" is attested in 1970s. The nonstandard strong forms squoze and squozen, attested dialectally since at least the mid-19th century, are by analogy with freeze.
The verb is transitive when referring to the object being pressed, but can be intransitive when describing moving into a tight space.
He squeezed to the orange.He squeezed the orange.Squeeze is a transitive verb and does not require a preposition before the object being pressed.