English
squammy
From squamous + -y, where -ous was elided to extract the root.
Formed from squamous + -y
The story
The reduplicated ⟨m⟩ is akin to runny, brimmy, etc. The Philippine slang sense is a semantic loan from Tagalog iskuwater, itself from Philippine English squatter (‘poor vagrant; illegal informal settler’) due to resemblance of the first syllable.
Today it means
adj Synonym of squamous (“Covered with, made of, or resembling scales; scaly.”).
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “squammy”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / squammy