Get down!

I was thinking about doing a Word of the Day post for "squat", since it's a useful verb that I don't know in many other languages, but when I went to the dictionaries, I realised I don't really understand the different between "squat", "stoop", "crouch", and "hunker". I don't really have the last of these in my speech (except in the phrasal verb "hunker down"), but the OED defines it as "To squat, with the haunches, knees, and ankles acutely bent, so as to bring the hams near the heels, and throw the whole weight upon the fore part of the feet." Which seems to imply that squatting doesn't necessarily left your heels from the ground. I can squat like this, but it feels unnatural unless I'm sitting on something not attached to my own body--and sitting isn't squatting, is it?

I guess it never occurred to me before how much "crouching" has in common with "squatting". I would have to say that the primary difference is crouching implies stooping. That is, for a crouch, your knees are bent, your head is down, and your shoulders are forward. And while you can lower your head and bend forward to squat, you don't have to. A crouch is also something which implies readiness to me; you can spring forward from a crouch, but not from a squat. A squat is something you can settle into for a good long time if you have to.

Whaddyall say, is that more or less how you see these terms as well? Or have I got them all hopelessly confused?