sucker

A person or animal that sucks, especially a breast or udder; especially a suckling animal, young mammal before it is weaned.

• Sir Gregory. I promise you, not a house-rabbit, sir. Sir Perfidious. No sucker on ’em all.

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.

A parasite; a sponger.broadly

• 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.

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.

• 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.

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 th

A suction cup.UKcolloquial

An animal such as the octopus and remora, which adhere to other bodies with such organs.

To strip the suckers or shoots from; to deprive of suckers.transitive

• to sucker maize

To produce suckers; to throw up additional stems or shoots.intransitive

• I have let my vines sucker more than I ought this year, perhaps, but I want to start them out in better shape by encouraging a large growth of wood.
• We prefer to plant in rows instead of hills because the plants sucker so badly here, and because, with our scanty rainfall, it is better to have the plants isolated than bunched.

To move or attach oneself by means of suckers.intransitive

• I am now the octopus, mucus, held together by soft moist membrane, suckering everywhere.
• He paused at the octopus tank. Clyde, our resident giant Pacific octopus, was suckering his way across the front panel.

To fool someone; to take advantage of someone.informaltransitive

• The salesman suckered him into signing an expensive maintenance contract.

To lure someone.informaltransitiveusually

• As the escort carriers chug away south, their single 5-inch rear guns are now cleared to open fire as the range closes. Disappointed gunners on other weapons are informed, "Just wait a little longer, boys; we're suckering them into 40-mm ra

Any thing or object.emphaticslang

• 1984, Runaway (film): scene in a helicopter, around 5 min 20 sec RAMSAY: Dave, can you land this sucker?
• See if you can get that sucker working again.

A person.derogatoryslang

• You got to hit that sucker and hit him over and over. You got to hope he runs out ...
• Maybe you hit that sucker and we'll get some DNA ...