Word Meanings - SUCKER - Book Publishers vocabulary database

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. Any one of numerous species of North American fresh-water cyprinoid fishes of the family Catostomidæ; so

Additional info about word: SUCKER

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. Any one of numerous species of North American fresh-water cyprinoid fishes of the family Catostomidæ; 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 , the white sucker (C. teres), the hog sucker , and the chub, or sweet sucker . Some of the large Western species are called buffalo fish, red horse, black horse, and suckerel. The remora. The lumpfish. The hagfish, or myxine. A California food fish closely allied to the kingfish ; -- called also bagre. 8. A parasite; a sponger. See def. 6, above. 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. Fuller. 9. A hard drinker; a soaker. 10. A greenhorn; one easily gulled. 11. A nickname applied to a native of Illinois. Carp sucker, Cherry sucker, etc. See under Carp, Cherry, etc. -- Sucker fish. See Sucking fish, under Sucking. -- Sucker rod, a pump rod. See under Pump. -- Sucker tube , one of the external ambulacral tubes of an echinoderm, -- usually terminated by a sucker and used for locomotion. Called also sucker foot. See Spatangoid. (more info) 1. One who, or that which, sucks; esp., one of the organs by which certain animals, as the octopus and remora, adhere to other bodies. 2. A suckling; a sucking animal. Beau. & Fl. 3. The embolus, or bucket, of a pump; also, the valve of a pump basket. Boyle. 4. A pipe through which anything is drawn. 5. 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.

Related words: (words related to SUCKER)

• WATER-BEARER
  The constellation Aquarius.
• CALLOSUM
  The great band commissural fibers which unites the two cerebral hemispheres. See corpus callosum, under Carpus.
• CALLOW
  1. Destitute of feathers; naked; unfledged. An in the leafy summit, spied a nest, Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow pressed. Dryden. 2. Immature; boyish; "green"; as, a callow youth. I perceive by this, thou art but a callow maid. Old Play .
• CALLE
  A kind of head covering; a caul. Chaucer.
• WATERWORT
  Any plant of the natural order Elatineæ, consisting of two genera , mostly small annual herbs growing in the edges of ponds. Some have a peppery or acrid taste.
• WATER SHREW
  Any one of several species of shrews having fringed feet and capable of swimming actively. The two common European species are the best known. The most common American water shrew, or marsh shrew , is rarely seen, owing to its nocturnal habits.
• WATER-TIGHT
  So tight as to retain, or not to admit, water; not leaky.
• WATER RAT
  The water vole. See under Vole. The muskrat. The beaver rat. See under Beaver. 2. A thief on the water; a pirate.
• WATER CRAKE
  The dipper. The spotted crake . See Illust. of Crake. The swamp hen, or crake, of Australia.
• WATER DOG
  A dog accustomed to the water, or trained to retrieve waterfowl. Retrievers, waters spaniels, and Newfoundland dogs are so trained.
• WATER SAIL
  A small sail sometimes set under a studding sail or under a driver boom, and reaching nearly to the water.
• WATER CLOCK
  An instrument or machine serving to measure time by the fall, or flow, of a certain quantity of water; a clepsydra.
• NORTHERNMOST
  Farthest north.
• WATERIE
  The pied wagtail; -- so called because it frequents ponds.
• WATER BALLAST
  Water confined in specially constructed compartments in a vessel's hold, to serve as ballast.
• FRESHNESS
  The state of being fresh. The Scots had the advantage both for number and freshness of men. Hayward. And breathe the freshness of the open air. Dryden. Her cheeks their freshness lose and wonted grace. Granville.
• WATER RAM
  An hydraulic ram.
• WATER LINE
  Any one of certain lines of a vessel, model, or plan, parallel with the surface of the water at various heights from the keel. Note: In a half-breadth plan, the water lines are outward curves showing the horizontal form of the ship at their several
• WATER LOCUST
  A thorny leguminous tree which grows in the swamps of the Mississippi valley.
• WATER PARSNIP
  Any plant of the aquatic umbelliferous genus Sium, poisonous herbs with pinnate or dissected leaves and small white flowers.
• DISPLANTATION
  The act of displanting; removal; displacement. Sir W. Raleigh.
• SUPPLANT
  heels, to throw down; sub under + planta the sole of the foot, also, 1. To trip up. "Supplanted, down he fell." Milton. 2. To remove or displace by stratagem; to displace and take the place of; to supersede; as, a rival supplants another in the
• WILLOWER
  A willow. See Willow, n., 2.
• WINDFLOWER
  The anemone; -- so called because formerly supposed to open only when the wind was blowing. See Anemone.
• GYMNASTICALLY
  In a gymnastic manner.
• FLOWERY-KIRTLED
  Dressed with garlands of flowers. Milton.
• HYPERCRITICALLY
  In a hypercritical manner.
• CAULIFLOWER
  An annual variety of Brassica oleracea, or cabbage of which the cluster of young flower stalks and buds is eaten as a vegetable. 2. The edible head or "curd" of a caulifower plant. (more info) caulis, and by E. flower; F. chou cabbage is fr. L.
• SCALLION
  A kind of small onion , native of Palestine; the eschalot, or shallot. 2. Any onion which does not "bottom out," but remains with a thick stem like a leek. Amer. Cyc.
• UNEMPIRICALLY
  Not empirically; without experiment or experience.
• UNIVOCALLY
  In a univocal manner; in one term; in one sense; not equivocally. How is sin univocally distinguished into venial and mortal, if the venial be not sin Bp. Hall.
• INNUMEROUS
  Innumerable. Milton.