means To crush or squeeze something into a flatter, softer, or more compact form — or, as a noun, the gourd-like vegetable, the racket sport, or a soft cordial drink, each named for that act of compressing.

from The verb 'squash' comes from Old French 'esquasser,' to crush or smash, built from Latin 'quassare,' to shatter (a frequentative of 'quatere,' to shake) — so at heart it shares roots with 'quash.' The vegetable, though, is unrelated and a quirk of coincidence: it's a shortening of 'askutasquash,' a word from Narragansett (an Algonquian language of New England) meaning roughly 'eaten raw' or 'green thing eaten,' which English ears trimmed down to a familiar-sounding 'squash.' The sport takes its name from the soft, squashable rubber ball it's played with.