sucker

American  

[suhk-er] / ˈsʌk ər /

noun

• suckers
  plural

1. a person or thing that sucks.

2. Informal. a person easily cheated, deceived, or imposed upon.

3. an infant or a young animal that is suckled, especially a suckling pig.

4. a part or organ of an animal adapted for sucking nourishment, or for adhering to an object as by suction.

5. any of several freshwater, mostly North American food fishes of the family Catostomidae, having thick lips: some are now rare.

6. Informal. a lollipop.

7. the piston of a pump that works by suction, or the valve of such a piston.

8. a pipe or tube through which something is drawn or sucked.

9. Botany. a shoot rising from a subterranean stem or root.

10. Informal. a person attracted to something as indicated.

    He's a sucker for new clothes.

11. Slang. any person or thing.

    He's one of those smart, handsome suckers everybody likes. They're good boots, but the suckers pinch my feet.

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verb (used with object)

• suckers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• suckered,
  past participle,  past
• suckering
  present participle

1. Slang. to make a sucker of; fool; hoodwink.

   another person suckered by a con artist.

verb (used without object)

• suckers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• suckered,
  past participle,  past
• suckering
  present participle

1. to send out suckers or shoots, as a plant.

sucker British  

/ ˈsʌkə /

noun

1. a person or thing that sucks

2. slang a person who is easily deceived or swindled

3. slang a person who cannot resist the attractions of a particular type of person or thing

   he's a sucker for blondes

4. a young animal that is not yet weaned, esp a suckling pig

5. zoology an organ that is specialized for sucking or adhering

6. a cup-shaped device, generally made of rubber, that may be attached to articles allowing them to adhere to a surface by suction

7. botany

   1. a strong shoot that arises in a mature plant from a root, rhizome, or the base of the main stem

   2. a short branch of a parasitic plant that absorbs nutrients from the host

8. a pipe or tube through which a fluid is drawn by suction

9. any small mainly North American cyprinoid fish of the family Catostomidae, having toothless jaws and a large sucking mouth

10. any of certain fishes that have sucking discs, esp the clingfish or sea snail

11. a piston in a suction pump or the valve in such a piston

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verb

1. (tr) to strip off the suckers from (a plant)

2. (intr) (of a plant) to produce suckers

sucker Scientific  

/ sŭk′ər /

1. A part by which an animal sucks blood from or uses suction to cling to another animal. Leeches and remoras have suckers.

2. A shoot growing from the base or root of a tree or shrub and giving rise to a new plant, a clone of the plant from which it comes. The growth of suckers is a form of asexual reproduction.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• suckerlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• suckers
  plural

Participles

• suckering
  present
• suckered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• sucker
  simple
• suckers
  simple
• have suckered
  perfect
• has suckered
  perfect
• am suckering
  progressive
• are suckering
  progressive
• is suckering
  progressive
• have been suckering
  perfect progressive
• has been suckering
  perfect progressive

Past

• suckered
  simple
• had suckered
  perfect
• was suckering
  progressive
• were suckering
  progressive
• had been suckering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will sucker
  simple
• will have suckered
  perfect
• will be suckering
  progressive
• will have been suckering
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of sucker

1350–1400; 1835–45 sucker for def. 2; Middle English; see suck, -er ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sucker suckers suckered suckering

On Amazon, you can get blue-blockers for $20—if you want to be a sucker whose eyes are drowning in other short-wavelength light!

From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026

It was Barnum who said not only that a sucker was born every minute, but that you should “never give a sucker an even break.”

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026

I am a sucker for it, for fashion like that of clothing designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026

In the case of Pederson, the out-of-work cook who lost his entire stake, he had fallen for a category rife with sucker bets: mention markets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026

We reinforced that sucker with some two-by-fours that Lieutenant Gearhart had had flown all the way up from Saigon.

From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers

By the time I remember it’s happening, all the good sweets are gone from grocery store shelves, so any visiting trick-or-treaters get butterscotch suckers, breath mints or candy corn.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2026

There’s another man who thinks he can tell that father and daughter “were the kind always looking for a way around the rules, who think waiting is for suckers like him.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

But the giant technology companies are now greedily raising as much money as they can from suckers — excuse me, investors — to keep spending on the AI arms race.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026

Remember how Roger Clemens used to wander back to baseball after letting the rest of those suckers suffer through spring training and the early schedule?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

That’s what we tell kids when they’re young and learn that there are no rules, or rather that there are but only suckers play by them.

From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson

Don’t miss: ‘Don’t get suckered like I did’: I paid $185 to the wrong passport website.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

I imagined them recounting stories of the various customers they had suckered during the day.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025

Possibly has not been at his best with the ball, but still gets it right often enough for England to be suckered in.

From BBC ● Dec. 7, 2025

I still cannot believe so many Americans got suckered so badly.

From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025

Then I got suckered into a school-yard comeback I should have seen coming.

From "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia

Give this plant some room, and avoid disturbing the roots to reduce suckering.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 29, 2023

Pearce showed me many spicebush specimens that were browsed but are now suckering afresh.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2021

Is Karl-Bertil plotting another crime, suckering in a bohemian liberal intent on performing her own broad-mindedness, or is he just a broken soul desperate for a kind word?

From Slate ● Dec. 30, 2020

They’ve been suckering us for years and continue to do so.

From New York Times ● Dec. 13, 2017

Bono and I crawled along a row and put ourselves in the way of one man who stooped there, suckering plants.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

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