sucker list

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a list of names and addresses of persons considered by a business, charity organization, etc., to be likely purchasers or donors.

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sucker list Idioms  

1. A list of names of likely prospects for making purchases or donations, as in Some charities raise money by selling their sucker lists to other organizations. This term uses sucker in the sense of “dupe,” a usage that in turn alludes to the naiveté of a baby suckling at its mother's breast. [Colloquial; 1940s]

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Etymology

Origin of sucker list

An Americanism dating back to 1945–50

Example Sentences

This was called lead generation, and it professionalized the sucker list.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 11, 2018

He was on every "sucker list" in the land and untold sharpers tried to victimize him but he understood too little to fall for their blandishments.

From Time Magazine Archive

Get-rich-quick promoters lay anxiously in wait for what Frank Brock of the New York Better Business Bureau described as "the biggest potential sucker list of all times."

From Time Magazine Archive

Such full page advertisements have become his chief means, with his "sucker list," of exploitation.*

From Time Magazine Archive

With these letters and the excellent contacts thus established, they started down the sucker list from W.G.

From Secret Armies The New Technique of Nazi Warfare by Spivak, John L.