sucker

English

/ˈsʌk.ə/, /ˈsʌk.ɚ/

noun
Definitions
  • A person or animal that sucks, especially a breast or udder; especially a suckling animal, young mammal before it is weaned.
  • (horticulture) An undesired stem growing out of the roots or lower trunk of a shrub or tree, especially from the rootstock of a grafted plant or tree.
  • (by extension) A parasite; a sponger.
  • An organ or body part that does the sucking; especially a round structure on the bodies of some insects, frogs, and octopuses that allows them to stick to surfaces.
  • A thing that works by sucking something.
  • The embolus, or bucket, of a pump; also, the valve of a pump basket.
  • A pipe through which anything is drawn.
  • A small piece of leather, usually round, having a string attached to the center, which, when saturated with water and pressed upon a stone or other body having a smooth surface, adheres, by reason of the atmospheric pressure, with such force as to enable a considerable weight to be thus lifted by the string; formerly used by children as a plaything.
  • (British) A suction cup.
  • An animal such as the octopus and remora, which adhere to other bodies with such organs.
  • (fish) Any fish in the family Catostomidae of North America and eastern Asia, which have mouths modified into downward-pointing, suckerlike structures for feeding in bottom sediments.
  • (American) A lollipop; a piece of candy which is sucked.
  • (slang) A hard drinker.
  • (American) An inhabitant of Illinois.
  • (American) A migrant lead miner working in the Driftless Area of northwest Illinois, southwest Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa, working in summer and leaving for winter, so named because of the similarity to the migratory patterns of the North American Catostomidae.
  • (American) A person who is easily deceived, tricked or persuaded to do something; a naive person.
  • (informal) A person irresistibly attracted by something specified.
  • (obsolete) The penis.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English souker affix from English suck.

Origin

English

suck

Gloss

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms