squatter

American  

[skwot-er] / ˈskwɒt ər /

noun

• squatters
  plural

1. a person or thing that squats.

2. a person who settles on land or occupies property without title, right, or payment of rent.

3. a person who settles on land under government regulation, in order to acquire title.

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squatter British  

/ ˈskwɒtə /

noun

1. a person who occupies property or land to which he has no legal title

2. 1. (formerly) a person who occupied a tract of land, esp pastoral land, as tenant of the Crown

   2. a farmer of sheep or cattle on a large scale

3. (in New Zealand) a 19th-century settler who took up large acreage on a Crown lease

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• squatterdom
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• squatters
  plural

Etymology

Origin of squatter

First recorded in 1775–85; squat + -er ¹

Explanation

A squatter is someone who lives on unoccupied land or in a vacant building without permission from the owner. Some squatters move into abandoned homes because they have nowhere else to live, while others are part of social movements that see squatting as a response to political and economic systems that have made housing inaccessible for many. While in some places it's a crime to be a squatter, other jurisdictions view squatting as a conflict between the squatter and the owner. An earlier definition of squatter was "settler who doesn't (yet) have a title to the land."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

squatter squatters

A room built for the NFL Rams and co-occupied by the squatter Chargers felt like a proper football cathedral.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026

Patent and Trademark Office, Tesla described its adversary as “a bad-faith trademark squatter, who started as a Tesla fan,” and described the French company’s attempt to trademark the Cybercab moniker as fraudulent.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 16, 2026

Animal control officers from Pasadena Humane confirmed that a bear was living under an Altadena house Sunday but could not be sure if the latest bear squatter was the same bruin from the earlier incident.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 13, 2026

The operation came days after police carried out a large-scale eviction at France’s biggest squatter camp in a suburb south of Paris.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2024

A few Cherokee towns that had been hit hardest by rangers responded by attacking squatter settlements, destroying several in 1776.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

As cost of living pressures persist, a growing number of people are applying to become so-called property guardians - living in vacant residential or commercial buildings to protect them from squatters, vandalism and disrepair.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

A security guard stood in front of the cabana to stop any would-be squatters.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026

The corner lot on which the club stands is now surrounded by hundreds of dilapidated and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025

He said the former library building, which is being repurposed into an Asian Resource Centre, had also had squatters living in it.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2025

The residents immediately became squatters, scrambling up the steep hillsides to remake their homes and farms on land they didn’t own.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

Related Words

• settler