Meaning

noun the act of gripping and pressing firmly

noun a state in which there is a short supply of cash to lend to businesses and consumers and interest rates are high

noun a situation in which increased costs cannot be passed on to the customer

originFrom earlier squize, squise (whence also dialectal English squizzen and squeege), first attested around 1600, further origin uncertain; probably an alteration of quease (which is attested since 1550), from Middle English queisen (“to squeeze”), from Old English cwȳsan (“to crush, squeeze”), itself also of unknown origin, perhaps imitative (compare Swedish qväsa, kväsa (“to squeeze, bruise, crush;…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0