Squidgy: unpleasantly damp; clammy
I’m reading an article on a recently discovered 1-ton rodent that once existed in South America, oh, about four million years ago. The article comforts the reader not to be fearful of its size, since it was probably a vegetarian: “Its small grinding teeth suggest it had only weak masticatory muscles for chewing food, and probably tucked into soft vegetation, fruit and squidgy aquatic plants in deltas.”
“Squidgy,” you say?
According to Answers.com (citing “Obscure Words,” which uses the Webster’s definition):
Squidgy: unpleasantly damp; clammy.
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it this way:
Squidgy: soft and wet and changing shape easily when pressed
Very different definitions, if you ask me. One with clearly negative connotations, the latter less so. (My dictionary research stops here, as those were the two definitions I found on-line, for free.)
I’m trying to imagine a squidgy aquatic plant. Maybe seaweed? Maybe a clump of algae? Or maybe most aquatic plants could be deemed “squidgy.”
Interestingly, Urban Dictionary has a definition for “squidy pyapps,” which hosts this colorful definition:
Occurs the morning after a good lash on the wife beater (Stella Artois)and doner kebab. Confident crop dusting in the office is soon bought to a halt, when ones’ kex are suddenly and explosively filled with gelatinous clarts.
About half of the nouns in that definition may be actual words.