Now rare. Forms: 6 suterkyn, 8 -kin; 7 soutterkine, souterkine, soutri-, 8 souterkin; 7– sooterkin. [In sense 1 app. ad. older Du. or Flem. *soetekijn (cf. Kilian, ‘soetken, dulcis amica, glycerium’), f. soet sweet. In sense 2 perh. f. SOOT sb.1; there is app. no similar term in Dutch.]
† 1. Sweetheart, mistress. Obs.–1
1530. Songs, in Anglia, XII. 593. This mynyon ys A rutterkyn; non lyke to hym but only Trym hys owne suterkyn.
2. An imaginary kind of afterbirth formerly attributed to Dutch women (see first quot.).
a. 1658. Cleveland, Char. Diurn. Maker (1677), 103. There goes a Report of the Holland Women, that together with their Children, they are delivered of a Sooterkin, not unlike to a Rat, which some imagine to be the Off-spring of the Stoves.
1678. Butler, Hud., III. II. 146/102.
| For Knaves and Fools being near of Kin, | |
| As Dutch-Boors are t’ a Sooterkin. |
1727. Swift, To Delany, Wks. 1755, III. II. 232. There follow’d at his lying-in For after-birth a Sooterkin.
1742. Mrs. E. Montagu, Lett., II. 180. I am glad there was a child, but pray was there not a little souterkin for the joy of the Lady’s relations.
1748. Mary Leapor, Poems Sev. Occasions, 92.
| But turn your Back —— Alcidas with a Grin | |
| Will vow you’re ugly as a Sooterkin. |
1862. Draper, Intell. Devel. Europe, xviii. (1865), 412. The housewives of Holland no longer bring forth sooterkins by sitting over the lighted chauffers.
b. transf. Chiefly applied to persons in allusive senses; sometimes = Dutchman. Also attrib.
1680. Betterton, The Revenge, III. i. Good morrow, my little Sooterkin; how is’t, my prettie Life?
1696. in Maidment, Scottish Pasquils (1868), 307. For if the Devil assumed thy corpes, And travelled through the Holand Dorps, Thou would terrify the Souterkines.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Dial. Dead, Wks. 1711, IV. 33. Whilst I was getting Money,… my Wife made it fly like Suterkins at home.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, II. 219. Ye Jacobites as sharp as Pins, Ye Mounsieurs, and ye Sooterkins, I’ll teach you all the Dance.
1746. Brit. Mag., 7. Smiling between Anger and Pleasure upon the sniveling Sooterkin.
1795. Sporting Mag., V. 136. The highwayman pushed poor Sooterkin [= chimney-sweep] out of the way.
1821. Blackw. Mag., IX. 60. Here is the sugar beside, which the hands of the sooterkin negro Reared [etc.].
c. Applied to literary compositions, etc., of a supplementary or imperfect character.
1668. T. St. Serfe, Tarugo’s Wiles, Epil. Besides the Authors true birth [= his play], the Audience will not be satisfied without a Soutterkine.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 126. Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit.
1777. R. W. Cox, in C. F. Hardy, Benenden Lett. (1901), 152. You can show you are a clever fellow, while poor I … must have my cherubims suffocated, and sooterkins put in the cradle.
1817. Carlyle, Early Letters (1886), I. 94. After considerable flourishing, he ventured to produce this child of the Doctor’s brain—and truly it seemed a very Sooterkin. Ibid. (1866), Remin. (1881), II. 240. It was by her address and invention that I got my sooterkin of a ‘study’ improved out of its worst blotches.
