main squeeze

What it means

Main squeeze names the person someone is dating and treats as their number one. "She's his main squeeze" means she is his girlfriend, and "you're my main squeeze" is a warm, slightly teasing way to tell a partner they are the one who matters. Wordnik carries the American Heritage definition, "one's primary romantic partner", and Dictionary.com says the romantic sense alludes to the squeeze of a hug, so the phrase reads close to "the person I hold closest". It works for a couple married for years and for someone a teenager started seeing last week. "Main" marks priority. It says this person comes first for the speaker, and the phrase itself makes no claim that anyone else is involved. A surrounding conversation can add that meaning, the same way "my main guy" can hint at a group of guys, but on its own, being called someone's main squeeze means being called their person. The tone is affectionate and informal. Cambridge labels the idiom US, old-fashioned and informal, and FreeDict calls it slightly dated, so it often lands as knowingly retro or a little corny on purpose, which suits a caption under a couple's photo. It is out of place in a work email, where "partner" or "significant other" does the same job. One more reading exists: in older American writing, "the main squeeze" with no "my" or "his" can mean the boss, and a workplace or gambling setting is the clue.

See the quick definition in the main squeeze dictionary entry.

How to use it

• “date night with my main squeeze”

  A caption under a couple's photo. Affectionate and a little retro on purpose.

• “you're my main squeeze and you know it”

  Said straight to a partner. Warm and teasing, a compliment.

• “wait is that his main squeeze??”

  Asking whether someone is dating a person. Here it just means girlfriend or boyfriend.

• “who's the main squeeze around here, who signs off on this”

  The older boss sense. No possessive, and a work setting, so it means the person in charge.

Where it came from

The boss sense came first. Steven Losie, writing on the American Dialect Society mailing list in July 2023, found "main squeeze" in the Chicago Inter Ocean on September 24, 1894, for a flashy figure in the gambling world, and in the Chicago Chronicle on July 20, 1895, where a Private Jack Holland is "captain, adjutant and main squeeze." The Oxford English Dictionary and Green's Dictionary of Slang both give George Ade's 1896 novel Artie as their earliest citation for this sense: "I went in and asked the main squeeze o' the works how much the sacque meant to him." Losie ties the boss sense to Chicago gambling and criminal slang, where squeeze meant extracting money.

The romantic sense grew as a pun on squeeze meaning a hug. Laurence Horn, on the same list, notes that the OED and Green's both date it to 1926, to G. H. Maines and B. Grant's Wise-crack Dictionary, which defines it as "best girl", and he cites hugging jokes using the phrase in the Allentown Morning Call in December 1920 and the Pittsburg Press in July 1921. No single coiner is documented for either sense, and the moment one meaning gave way to the other is not recorded.

The romantic sense became common in the late 1960s. A 1967 Boston Globe article by Lloyd Shearer listed it as Black American slang for "best girl", and the New York Times Magazine on December 8, 1968, defined it as a woman's boyfriend. Quincy Jones released an instrumental single called "Main Squeeze" in July 1969.

Where it's popular

Most at home in US and Canadian English. Oxford labels the romantic sense especially North American English, informal, and it is widely understood elsewhere.

How it caught on

1. September 24, 1894The Chicago Inter Ocean uses "main squeeze" for an important figure in the gambling world, the earliest example Steven Losie reports on the American Dialect Society list.
2. July 20, 1895The Chicago Chronicle describes Private Jack Holland as "captain, adjutant and main squeeze."
3. 1896George Ade's novel Artie has "the main squeeze o' the works", the earliest citation the OED and Green's Dictionary of Slang give for the boss sense.
4. December 14, 1920A joke in the Allentown Morning Call plays on main squeeze and hugging, an early step toward the romantic sense.
5. 1926Maines and Grant's Wise-crack Dictionary defines main squeeze as "best girl", the date the OED and Green's give for the romantic sense.
6. 1967A Boston Globe article by Lloyd Shearer lists main squeeze as Black American slang for "best girl".
7. December 8, 1968The New York Times Magazine defines main squeeze as a woman's boyfriend.
8. July 1969Quincy Jones releases an instrumental single called "Main Squeeze"; a Janis Joplin backing band takes the name by the end of the year.

Test yourself

Related slang

Questions people ask

• https://www.dictionary.com/browse/main-squeeze
• https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/squeeze_2
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/origins-of-words-on-love-romantic-relationships/main-squeeze
• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-main-squeeze
• https://freedict.com/slang/main-squeeze
• https://www.wordnik.com/words/main%20squeeze
• https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2023-July/163887.html
• https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2023-July/163914.html