squatter
Americannoun
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a person or thing that squats.
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a person who settles on land or occupies property without title, right, or payment of rent.
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a person who settles on land under government regulation, in order to acquire title.
noun
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a person who occupies property or land to which he has no legal title
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(formerly) a person who occupied a tract of land, esp pastoral land, as tenant of the Crown
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a farmer of sheep or cattle on a large scale
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(in New Zealand) a 19th-century settler who took up large acreage on a Crown lease
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of squatter
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."
Vocabulary lists containing squatter
Trash
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Patron Saints of Nothing
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for March 12–March 18, 2022
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The device is squatter and wider than Samsung’s previous foldables.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Right-hander Gibson, whose power is less startling given her squatter frame, can crunch the ball straight but is more adept in finding boundaries behind square.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2026
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
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
Some squatter might be watching, with the lights turned off.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
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
They may have been given more to do than Lockhart — the Netflix series is excellent — but they are still squatters on space that she cleared, and will own forever.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2025
In his video, Mr Perry said when squatters were staying in the building it had been "sectioned off into bedrooms" and "rented out to people in the most vulnerable of conditions".
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2025
Mutal’s last carved inscription dates to 869; soon after, its great public spaces were filled with squatters.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
