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suck·er (sŭkər)
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n.
1. One that sucks, especially an unweaned domestic animal.
2. Informal
a. One who is easily deceived; a dupe.
b. One that is indiscriminately attracted to something specified: I'm always a sucker for a good crime drama.
3. Slang
a. An unspecified thing. Used as a generalized term of reference, often as an intensive: "our goal of getting that sucker on the air before old age took the both of us" (Linda Ellerbee).
b. A person. Used as a generalized term of reference, often as an intensive: He's a mean sucker.
4. A lollipop.
5.
a. A piston or piston valve, as in a suction pump or syringe.
b. A tube or pipe, such as a siphon, through which something is sucked.
6. Any of numerous freshwater fishes of the family Catostomidae of North America and East Asia, having a thick-lipped mouth used for feeding by suction.
7. Zoology An organ or other structure adapted for sucking nourishment or for clinging to objects by suction.
8. Botany A secondary shoot produced from the base or roots of a woody plant that gives rise to a new plant.
v. suck·ered, suck·er·ing, suck·ers
v.tr.
1. To strip suckers or shoots from (plants).
2. Informal To trick; dupe: sucker a tourist into a confidence game.
v.intr.
Botany
To send out suckers or shoots.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.