SUCKER

noun the hagfish, or myxine.

2. sucker ·noun a hard drinker; a soaker.

3. sucker ·noun a suckling; a sucking animal.

4. sucker ·noun a greenhorn; one easily gulled.

5. sucker ·noun the remora.

6. sucker ·noun the lumpfish.

7. sucker ·noun a pipe through which anything is drawn.

8. sucker ·noun a parasite; a sponger. ·see def. 6, above.

9. sucker ·noun a nickname applied to a native of illinois.

10. sucker ·vi to form suckers; as, corn suckers abundantly.

11. sucker ·noun the embolus, or bucket, of a pump; also, the valve of a pump basket.

12. sucker ·vt to strip off the suckers or shoots from; to deprive of suckers; as, to sucker maize.

13. sucker ·noun a california food fish (menticirrus undulatus) closely allied to the kingfish (a);

— called also bagre.

14. sucker ·noun one who, or that which, sucks; ·esp., one of the organs by which certain animals, as the octopus and remora, adhere to other bodies.

15. sucker ·noun a shoot from the roots or lower part of the stem of a plant;

— so called, perhaps, from diverting nourishment from the body of the plant.

xvi. sucker ·noun 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 the string;

— used by children as a plaything.

xvii. sucker ·noun any one of numerous species of north american fresh-water cyprinoid fishes of the family catostomidae; so called because the lips are protrusile. the flesh is coarse, and they are of little value as food. the most common species of the eastern united states are the northern sucker (catostomus commersoni), the white sucker (c. teres), the hog sucker (c. nigricans), and the chub, or sweet sucker (erimyzon sucetta). some of the large western species are called buffalo fish, red horse, black horse, and suckerel.