sucks

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular present tense of suck.

   The newborn sucks steadily at the bottle every two hours.

   The pump sucks water out of the flooded basement.

   Note

   Both of the verb's patterns survive in this form. With an object it pulls something in: a pump sucks water out, a child sucks a lozenge. Without one it describes feeding: a calf sucks at the teat. An older, now archaic use takes breath as its object, as when someone sucks in air, so it may surprise readers of older texts. The identical spelling is also the noun plural.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of suck.

   The infant managed only a few weak sucks at the bottle before dozing off.

   She drew two long sucks from the milkshake through the paper straw.

   Note

   Only some meanings of the noun take this plural. Countable uses pluralize freely: several sucks at a straw, the sucks of a pump, or the sucks of a river, where strong currents converge and make navigation hard. Uncountable uses, such as milk drawn from the breast or suction as a capacity, stay singular. In Canada the word also names people, so two sucks are two crybabies or sore losers. The same spelling serves the present-tense verb.

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