Sucker Meaning
/ˈsʌk.ə/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA person or animal that sucks, especially a breast or udder; especially a suckling animal, young mammal before it is weaned.
nounAn 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.
Sentence Examples
I am going to get that sucker.
I was a sucker for her tears.
You take me for a sucker, don't you?
CEFR Practice Quiz
The fake salesman easily tricks the ____ into buying a useless product.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The octopus uses a small ____ on each arm to grip onto slippery rocks and catch its prey in the ocean.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English souker, sokere, sukkere, soukere, equivalent to suck (verb) + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Suuger, West Frisian sûker (“sucker”), Dutch zuiger (“sucker”), German Sauger (“dummy; vacuum”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Sir Gregory. I promise you, not a house-rabbit, sir. Sir Perfidious. No sucker on ’em all."
— 1647, Uncertain, perhaps Beaumont and Fletcher or Thomas Middleton and William Rowley?, Wit at Several Weapons, act 3, scene 1, page 44:
"They who constantly converse with men far above their estates shall reap shame and loss thereby; if thou payest nothing, they will count thee a sucker, no branch."
— 1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Prophane State:
"Of the scaly tribe, I may mention those suckers belonging to the body loaferish, that never rise to the surface of respectability, but are always groveling in the mud of corruption, whose sole study appears to be to see how much they can get without the least physical exertion; and who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry."
— 1841, Elbridge Gerry [Dow, Jr.] Paige, Short Patent Sermons, revised and corrected edition, New York: Lawrence Labree, page 232:
"The last Mr. Hobbs’s principal explanations, is of the experiment wherein above 100 pound weight, being hung at the depress’d sucker, the sucker was, notwithstanding, impell’d up again, by the air, to the top of the cylinder."
— 1725, Robert Boyle, The Philosophical Works, page 687:
"There is a swarm of 'suckers,' 'hoosiers,' 'buckeyes,' 'corn-crackers,' and 'wolverines,' eternally on the qui vive, in those parts—a migratory race of bipeds—who float about from spot to spot, 'squatting,' for the nonce, wherever their fancy or interest may incline them; and a rougher set of men will rarely be met with, saving the genuine 'voyageurs,' or 'trappers'—so notorious for their hardihood."
— 1848, Francis Alexander Durivage, George P. Burnham, “How the Wolverine Discovered the Lead Mine—A Fact”, in Stray Subjects, Arrested And Bound Over, page 79:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The fake salesman easily tricks the ____ into buying a useless product.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The octopus uses a small ____ on each arm to grip onto slippery rocks and catch its prey in the ocean.