squilgee

The origin of the noun is unknown; compare squeegee which is attested later.^[1][2] The verb is probably derived from the noun.^[3]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈskwɪld͡ʒiː/, /skwɪlˈd͡ʒiː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈskwɪlˌd͡ʒi/
• Rhymes: (one pronunciation) -iː
• Hyphenation: squil‧gee

squilgee (plural squilgees)

1. (nautical, historical) A tool in the form of a mop or swab, or a blade with a long handle, used for cleaning and/or drying a vessel's deck; a type of squeegee.
   • 1829, George Jones, Sketches of Naval Life, with Notices of Men, Manners and Scenery, on the Shores of the Mediterranean, in a Series of Letters from the Brandwine and Constitution Frigates, volume 1, page 97:

     After the holy-stone, comes the squill-gee; a wooden instrument like a hoe, but with a face, broad and flat, and lined with leather: the decks are partly dried with it; and the operation is completed by the swabs, articles formed by tying a number of loose yarns together, now dashed, by their handles, with violence about the deck.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “A Squeeze of the Hand”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 466:

     A whaleman's nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of Leviathan's tail: […] Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.

• squillage, squillagee, squillgee, squill-gee

• squilgeeing (noun)

squilgee (third-person singular simple present squilgees, present participle squilgeeing, simple past and past participle squilgeed)

1. (transitive, nautical, also figurative) Synonym of squeegee (“to use a (squilgee or) squeegee on (something, such as a surface)”).