DictionaryAI

sucking

USSUK-ing/ˈsʌkɪŋ/

Noun pluralsuckings (some meanings)

5 meanings of sucking

Practice

  1. 1
    verb
    Present participle of suck.

    The calf was sucking at its mother's side all afternoon.

    Sucking the venom from a snakebite is now known to be useless.

    Note

    One spelling does two grammatical jobs here. After a form of be it is a participle (the calf was sucking). In a subject or object slot it is a gerund (sucking venom from a bite is useless). The verb behind it works both ways: transitive with a direct object (sucking the venom), or intransitive with at (sucking at its mother's side). Unlike the noun for the act, the gerund takes no plural.

  2. 2
    noununcountable
    The act of drawing something into the mouth by creating suction with the lips and breath.

    The vigorous sucking of the calf told the farmer it was healthy.

    Her rhythmic sucking on the lozenge slowly eased the sore throat.

    Similarsuction

  3. 3
    nouncountable or uncountable
    A noise or pulling motion produced when something draws in air or liquid.

    The sucking of the tide between the rocks unnerved the swimmers.

    A wet sucking accompanied each pull of the plunger.

    Similarsuction, pull

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    adjectivearchaic
    Still nourished by the mother's milk, as an infant not yet weaned.

    The sucking babe was carried everywhere by its nurse.

    A sucking calf will not last long without the cow nearby.

    Note

    An old adjective for the unweaned, now archaic: a sucking babe, a sucking calf. It normally stands before its noun and does not grade, so nothing is more sucking than something else. In present-day writing, suckling or unweaned does the same work without the antique flavor. Keep sucking for period voice, where the reader expects older phrasing.

  2. 5
    adjectivearchaicfiguratively
    Young and inexperienced, in the manner of someone only just beginning.

    The captain had no patience for sucking officers fresh from the academy.

    Rather a shy place for a sucking county member, ay, Pynsent?
    1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis
    Note

    The figurative leap from the unweaned infant describes someone so new to a role that they are still, in effect, on the milk. Thackeray, writing around 1850, teases a sucking county member, a newly made member out of his depth. The word sits before a title or role, and its tone is amused condescension. Today it reads as deliberate period color.

sucking is a form of suck

suck, verb: To be inferior or objectionable; a general term of disparagement, often used with at to point to a particular area of weakness. Full entry

Forms
sucksucks he/she/itsucking -ing formsucked past tense, past participle
Spelling
suck → sucking: add -ing

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