Definition of "squasher"

It is in this sense that television, the great reducer, the great squasher of high hearts and innocence, is a depressing cultural voice.

1996, T William Boxx, Gary M Quinlivan, Culture in crisis and the renewal of civil life

Whatever their feelings about the state's heavy-handed blows on idealist scientific writings, they appear to have remained committed to their roles as squashers of superstition.

2009, Sigrid Schmalzer, The People's Peking Man, page 81