Forms: 4 souker(e, 5 sokare, -ere, sowker, sucour, 6 socar, Sc. soukar, 6–7 succor, suckar, 7 soker, succur, shucker, 9 (in sense 4) succour, dial. sooker, 6– sucker. [f. SUCK v. + -ER1.]
I. 1. A young mammal before it is weaned; † a child at the breast (even-sucker, see EVEN- 2); now spec. a sucking-pig; a young whale-calf.
See also RABBIT-SUCKER († rabbit’s sucker).
1382. Wyclif, 2 Macc. ix. 29. Philip, his euen souker [Vulg. collectaneus ejus].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 463/1. Sokere, or he þat sokythe, sugens.
c. 1460. [see RABBIT-SUCKER 1].
a. 1549. in Gentl. Mag. (1813), May, 427. Rabetts socars the dozen, xviij d.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Mamanton o mamon, a sucker.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 673. Although the fœcundity of Swine bee great, yet it is better to kil off two or three,… for this multitude of suckers do quickly draw away all nourishment from the dam.
c. 1614. Fletcher, Wit at Sev. Weapons, III. i. Sir Gr. I promise you, not a house-Rabbit, Sir. Old K. No sucker on ’em all.
1701. C. Wooley, Jrnl. New York (1860), 38. Their [sc. whales’] young Suckers come along with them their several courses.
1836. Uncle Philip’s Convers. Whale Fishery, 253. I saw the whale with its sucker, and a narwal in company.
1878. Ure’s Dict. Arts, IV. Suppl. 380. Racks, or young rabbits about two months old … and suckers, or very young rabbits.
1883. Standard, 11 June, 6/3. The inquiry [for pigs] was restricted, at less money for suckers.
1902. T. F. Dale, Riding & Polo Ponies, iii. 45. Fillies should be taken off the moors as suckers.
b. fig. A greenhorn, simpleton. U.S.
1857. San Francisco Call, 5 Dec. (Thornton, Amer. Gloss.). You may think I’m a sucker.
1904. Eliz. Robins, Magnetic North, viii. 153. Goin’ out to stir up a boom, and sell his claim to some sucker.
2. One who or that which sucks with the mouth.
Cf. the animal-names BLOOD-SUCKER, GOATSUCKER, HONEYSUCKER.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 463/1. Sokare of mylke, or sokerel that longe sokythe, mammotrepus.
1598. Extr. Aberd. Reg. (1848), II. 168. Devoraris and suckeris of the blude and substance of the pure.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Tetard, A great sucker, a child that sucketh much.
1861. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XXII. I. 147. The fastest sucker will have an undue share of the milk.
3. One who lives at the expense of another; one who draws profit or extorts subsistence from some source; U.S. slang, a sponger, parasite.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxiii. 41. Soukaris [pr. sonkaris], groukaris, gledaris, gunnaris.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VI., 159. Flatterers to the kyng…, suckers of his purse and robbers of his subiectes.
1589. [? Lyly], Pappe w. Hatchet, To Rdr. I knowe there is none of honour so carelesse … that wil succor those that be suckers of the Church.
1728. Ramsay, Gen. Mistake, 140. This sucker thinks nane wise, But him that can to immense riches rise.
1856. Dow, Serm., III. (Bartlett). Those suckers belonging to the body loaferish, whose sole study appears to be to see how much they can get without the least physical exertion.
4. A shoot thrown out from the base of a tree or plant, which in most cases may serve for propagation; now esp. such a shoot rising from the root under ground, near to, or at some distance from, the trunk; also (now rare), a runner (as of the strawberry); also, a lateral shoot; in the tobacco plant, an axillary shoot (cf. SUCKER v. 2).
1577–82. Breton, Toyes of Idle Head, Wks. (Grosart), I. 54/1. If suckers draw the sappe from bowes on hie, Perhaps in tyme the top of tree may die.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Pimpollo, a succor that groweth out of the bodies of trees, Stolo.
1615. W. Lawson, Country Housew. Garden (1626), 4. The roots of Apples and Peares … will put foorth suckers, which are a great hinderance.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 129. Filberds are generally drawn as Suckers from the old Trees.
1682. G. Rose, Sch. Instruct. Officers Month, 154. Take the Succors or Stalks of these Roman Lettice, and peel of the leaves and skins.
1688. Phil. Trans., XVII. 982. When the top-bud [of the tobacco plant] is gone, it puts forth no more Leaves, but Side-branches, which they call Suckers.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 12 Sept. 1641. Out of whose stem, neere the roote, issue 5 upright and exceeding tall suckers or boles.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 188. Spanish Broom is not much unlike the yellow Jessamine…. It … is increased by Seeds or Suckers.
1766. Complete Farmer, s.v. Quince-tree, Suckers are the worst to raise them from; and cuttings are generally preferred to layers.
1772–84. Cook’s Voy. (1790), I. 279. Pineapples … grow so luxuriantly that seven or eight suckers have been seen adhering to one stem.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 374. Stem upright,… bare at base, at top leafy, branched, never throwing out succours.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 688. Clear the strawberries from suckers.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 239. Plants are propagated either by seed, or by division: the latter mode including cuttings, joints, leaves, layers, suckers, slips, budding, grafting, and inarching.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 107. The Dwarf Cherry forms a bush with copious suckers.
1877. Aug. Morris, Tobacco, 45. The tobacco plant shoots up its stalk at top, sending out some four or five main suckers branchwise.
b. fig. (freq. with reference to the withdrawal of nourishment from the parent stem).
1591. Greene, 2nd Pt. Conny Catch., Ep. Ded. Wks. (Grosart), X. 73. If the honorable and worshipfull of this land looke into their liues, and cut off such vpstarting suckars that consume the sap from the roote of the Tree.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., III. v. 163. If thou payest nothing, they will count thee a sucker, no branch.
1688. Norris, Theory & Regul. Love, II. 113. This [sc. self-love] is the great Sucker of Society, and that which robbs the Body Politick of its due nourishment.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scandal, II. iii. For my part I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth.
1792. in Ld. Auckland’s Corr. (1861), II. 428. I have no olive-branches round my table, and I stand like a blasted pollard without a sucker to survive me.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages, VIII. ii. (1819), III. 382. A manufacturing district … sends out, as it were, suckers into all its neighbourhood.
1827. J. F. Cooper, Prairie, III. v. 160. I am a sycamore, that once covered many with my shadow…. But a single succour is springing from my roots.
1858. Stanley, Life of Arnold, I. v. 215. A living sucker from the mother country.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., xxx. This woman whose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his had a terrible power of annoyance in her.
5. An organ adapted for sucking or absorbing nourishment by suction, e.g., the proboscis of an insect, the mouth of a cyclostomous fish, a siphonostomous crustacean, etc.
1685. Phil. Trans., XV. 1158. The Sucker or Proboscis … wherewith the Bee sucks the Honey from the flowers.
1771. Ann. Reg., II. 169/1. Corals and sea-pens protrude or draw back their suckers.
1817. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xvii. II. 88. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark, is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 247. The mouth consisting of a rostrum, from which a syphon or sucker is protruded at will. Ibid. Pediculus…; mouth consisting of a rostrum, inclosing an exsertile sucker.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 866. When the sucker [of the louse] is taken out a tiny blood mark appears on the surface [of the human skin].
6. Any fish having a conformation of the lips that suggests that it feeds by suction; esp. North American cyprinoid fishes of the family Catostomidæ.
1772. Phil. Trans., LXIII. 155. The fourth and last fish brought from Hudson’s Bay is there called a Sucker, because it lives by suction.
1806. Pike, Sources Mississ. (1810), 60. They … raise plenty of Irish potatoes, catch pike, suckers, pickerel, and white fish in abundance.
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Sucker, a very common fish of the genus labeo, and of which there are many varieties, including the Chub, Mullet, Barbel, Horned Dace, etc.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 16. The destructive inroads of sturgeon, cat-fish and suckers upon the spawning beds in Lake Pepin.
b. U.S. An inhabitant of the state of Illinois.
For the alleged origin of the term see quot. 1833.
1833. C. F. Hoffman, Winter in Far West (1835), I. 207. There was a long-haired ‘hooshier’ from Indiana, a couple of smart-looking ‘suckers’ from the southern part of Illinois, a keen-eyed leather-belted ‘badger’ from the mines of Ouisconsin. [note, So called after the fish of that name, from his going up the river to the mines, and returning at the season when the sucker makes its migrations].
1838. Haliburton, Clockm., Ser. II. xix. (1839), 258. There’s the hoosiers of Indiana, the suckers of Illinoy, the pukes of Missuri [etc.].
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Race. I found abundant points of resemblance between the Germans of the Hercynian Forest and our ‘Hoosiers,’ ‘Suckers,’ and ‘Badgers,’ of the American woods.
7. Used as a book-rendering of Suctoria, the name of various groups of animals having a sucking apparatus.
1835–6. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., I. 771/1. The suckers … live almost invariably attached to their prey.
a. 1843. South, Zool., in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VII. 275/1. Edwards … arranges the Crustaceans in the three sub-classes: 1. Suckers…; 2. Xyphosures…; 3. Masticators.
8. The embolus, piston or rising-valve of a pump; the piston of a syringe or an air-pump.
1611. Cotgr., Soupape,… the Supper, or Sucker of a Pumpe.
1634. J. B[ate], Myst. Nat., 7. No engine for water workes … can be made without the help of Succurs, Forcers, or Clackes.
1653. H. More, Antid. Ath., II. ii. § 9. The Sucker of the Air-pump, the Cylinder being well emptied of the Air, should draw up above an hundred pound weight.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 192. Almost all Water-Engines are reducible to the Bucket and Sucker.
1837. W. B. Adams, Carriages, 113. If the sucker of a pump be allowed to get dry it fails to draw up the water.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. 10. When the pump descends, there is heard a plunge … then, as it rises, and the sucker begins to act [etc.].
9. † a. Anat. = EMULGENT sb. Obs.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 145. The other veine, of his office is called the emulgent or sucker.
† b. An absorbent substance. In fig. context.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. 34. The entrie of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges, to drawe vse of knowledge.
† c. One of a number of ‘buckets’ attached to a moving chain. Obs.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 148. The chain is made with leather suckers upon it at little distances, which bring up water, and discharge themselves into a trough.
d. A pipe or tube through which anything is drawn by suction; locally, a hood over a fire-place.
1755. Churchw. Acc. Wolsingham (MS.). Sucker in ye Vestery Chimnay, 3s. 0d.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 602. All the oil passed over with the water…. It was separated from the water by means of a sucker.
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Sucker, a tube used for sucking sherry-cobblers. They are made of silver, glass, straw, or sticks of maccaroni.
1876. Whitby Gloss., Sooker, in old dwellings, a brick bood or canopy … projecting over the fire for focalizing the air current.
e. An air-hole fitted with a valve; a valve for the regulation of the flow of air.
1797. Monthly Mag., III. 303. When the bellows is opened, one of its sides becomes filled with ordinary air, by means of a sucker placed next to the moving leaf.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 1975. In long conduit pipes, air-holes … terminating in inverted valves or suckers, should be made at convenient distances.
1881. C. A. Edwards, Organs, 42. In the middle-board are placed suckers, i.e., holes provided with leather valves on the top.
f. Bot. = HAUSTORIUM.
1849. Balfour, Man. Bot., § 122. In parasites … such as Dodder…, roots are sometimes produced in the form of suckers, which enter into the cellular tissue of the plant preyed upon.
1856. Henslow, Dict. Bot. Terms, Sucker,… a tubercular process … on the stems of certain flowering parasites.
II. 10. A part or organ adapted for adhering to an object; the adhesive pad of an insect’s foot, etc.; a suctorial disk, foot, etc.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. 105. This Fish [i.e., Remora] is able to fasten himself to any great Fish, Boat, or Ship, with the help of the Coronet or Sucker on his Head.
1817. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xxiii. II. 320. Those [insects] that climb by the aid of suckers, which adhere … by the pressure of the atmosphere.
1856. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 521. The arms of the Cuttle-fish, which are furnished with great numbers of contractile suckers.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 1007. These, the suckers and hooklets, serve to attach the parasite to the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal of the host.
11. Any fish characterized by a suctorial disk by which it adheres to foreign objects; e.g., fishes of the genus Cyclopterus (cf. lump-sucker s.v. LUMP sb.2), the genus Liparis (sea-snails or snail-fishes), the remora (Echeneis).
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl. App., Sucker, or Suck-fish [i.e., Romora].
1776. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. pl. xxi. Unctuous Sucker. Ibid., pl. xxii. Bimaculated Sucker. Jura Sucker.
1828. Fleming, Hist. Brit. Anim., 189. L[epadogaster] cornubiensis. Cornish Sucker.
1863. Couch, Brit. Fishes, II. 195. Network Sucker … Liparis reticulatus.
1898. Morris, Austral Eng., 443. Sucker, name given in New Zealand to the fish Diplocrepis puniceus.
12. A toy, consisting of a round piece of leather with a string attached at the center, which, laid wet upon a solid surface and drawn up by the string, adheres by reason of the vacuum created.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. 105. Those round Leathers, wherewith Boys are us’d to play, called Suckers, one of which, not above an inch and 1/2 diametre, being well soaked in water, will stick so fast to a Stone [etc.].
1832. Brewster, Nat. Magic, x. 260. The leathern suckers used by children for lifting stones.
1906. O. Onions, Drakestone, xxix. The lad was perched on a tall stool, cutting a round sucker of leather.
III. 13. local. A sweet, a ‘suck.’
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, 408. Suckers. A longish sort of a sweety, enjoyed by children, in a the mode denoted by the name.
1893. Kipling, Many Invent., 168. We’ve played ’em for suckers so often that when it comes to the golden truth.
1898. Tit-Bits, 30 April, 85/2. ‘Young bloods’ of the town who buy their ‘Suckers’ and weeds at the shop.
IV. 14. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 10) sucker-bearing, -like, -shaped ppl. adjs.; sucker-cup, -foot = sucking-cup, -foot (see SUCKING vbl. sb. 3 b); sucker-fish = senses 6 and 11, SUCKING-FISH; sucker-rod (see quots.).
1857. Gosse, Omphalos, vii. 171. In the adult the *sucker-bearing shoots frequently run to a considerable distance.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 674/2. The sucker-bearing arms of male Dibranchiate Siphonopods.
1845. Gosse, Ocean, vi. (1849), 306. There is placed in each *sucker-cup of the long feet [of squids, etc.], a sharp projecting hook.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 568. The *sucker-fish. It has a long oval plate on the top of the head, by which … it clings to a ship’s bottom.
1889. Nature, 17 Jan., 285/2, heading. The Employment of the Sucker-fish (Echeneis) in Turtle-fishing.
1898. Proc. Zool. Soc., Nov., 589. A small sucker-fish of the genus Lepadogaster.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, 141. The water-vascular canal supplying the ambulacral *sucker-feet.
1846. Dana, Zooph., iv. (1848), 31. Tentacles, which affix themselves by a *sucker-like action.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2442/2. *Sucker-rod, a rod connecting the brake of a pump with the bucket.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Sucker-rod, the pump-rod of an oil-well.
1840. Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 471. Limnochares, Latr., has the mouth *sucker-shaped.
