[f. SUCK v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb SUCK; suction. Also, an instance of this.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xi. (Symon & Iudas), 324. Þai wechis, þat had mare care of þat swkyne þan þai had yare.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. xxi. 8. Thanne the child growide and was don awey fro sowkyng.
14[?]. Tundale’s Vis., 123. Thou blestful quene of kyngis emperes That gaf thi son sowkyng in a stall.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, 231. Whan þe modyr wanyth here child, sche wetyth here tetys wyth sum byttere thyng, & so þe chyld felyng ofte þat bytternes leuyth his soukyng.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 84. Otes with hir sucking a peeler is found.
1581. Satir. Poems Reform., xliii. 44. Preseruit from slauchter be souking of a beir.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., I. 91. Meil quhilke throuch souking thay fed vpon.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 267/2. Nether must we afther his meates and suckinges, dandle it much.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xx. (Roxb.), 234. An Instrument or pipe … made of this forme, will cause the water by sucking to rise vp and run forth.
1727. Philip Quarll (1816), 61. Reserving only one for sucking of the old ones, to keep them in milk.
1885. Daily News, 13 Feb., 5/1. There are very powerful engines which do the blowing and the sucking through these tubes.
1892. Carmichael, Dis. Children, 287. The child should be fed at regular intervals from both breasts at each sucking.
† b. transf. = SUCTION 1 c. Obs.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physick, 10. Appetite wanting. If there be no sucking, the forces cannot fail, and there are signs of repletion.
2. pl. What is obtained by suction. rare.
1387–8. T. Usk, Test. Love, I. iv. (Skeat), l. 27. The olde soukinges whiche thou haddest of me arn amaystred and lorn fro al maner of knowing.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, X. x. (Rtldg.), 371. To dip in my four fingers and thumb, and then to sup like a bear upon suckings.
3. attrib. and Comb., as sucking operation, power; † sucking-bone, ? a marrowbone; sucking-cushion, -pad, a lobulated mass of fat occupying the space between the masseter and the external surface of the buccinator; † sucking-pipe, a pipe used for drawing air or water in some direction; † sucking-pot = SUCKING-BOTTLE 1; † sucking-tooth = MILK-TOOTH; sucking-tube, a tube through which liquid is sucked into the mouth; † sucking-young adj., young enough to be still sucking the dam.
1648. Hexham, II. Een Zuygh-been, a *Sucking-bone.
a. 1907. Sutton, in Piersol’s Human Anat., 493. The *sucking cushions sometimes enlarge in adults.
1896. Hardy, Jude, I. vi. She had managed to get back one dimple by … repeating the odd little *sucking operation before mentioned.
1889. Macalister, Human Anat., 566. The buccal fat in the child forms a lobulated … *sucking-pad.
1699. Phil. Trans., XXI. 228. [In a Draught of Savery’s Engine] G The Force Pipe. H The *sucking Pipe. Ibid. (1731), XXXVII. 7. A Sucking Pipe and Grate … going into the Water, which supplies all the four Cylinders alternately. Ibid. (1735), XXXIX. 42. The Sucking-Pipe receives its Air only from the Room where the Machine stands.
1552. Huloet, *Suckyng pot for chyldren, aliphanus.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VI. 272. On this occasion their *sucking power is particularly serviceable.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 338. A guelding never casts his teeth, no not his *sucking teeth, in case he were guelded before.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2442/2. The *sucking-tube was used by the ancients as a domestic utensil, and also in the temples.
1657. W. Rand, trans. Gassendi’s Life Peiresc, II. 110. It was a most swift Beast, and such as could not be taken, save when it was *sucking-young.
b. Applied to various organs in fishes, crustaceans, etc., adapted for use as suckers, e.g., sucking-bowl, -cup, -disk, -foot, -mouth, -spear, -tube.
1841. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., § 171. In the male Actheres, the *sucking-bowl possessed by the female does not exist.
1840. Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 446. The two anterior [legs] … exhibiting, on the inside, a kind of rosette, formed by the muscles, and seeming to act as a *sucking-cup.
1830. J. E. Gray, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), XXI. 592/1. A dorsal tail, ending in a *sucking disk.
1883. Science, I. 195/2. Ambulatory tentacles … terminating … in expanded sucking-disks.
1855. Kingsley, Glaucus (1878), 167. The bird’s foot star … which you may see crawling by its thousand *sucking-feet.
a. 1843. South, Zool., in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VII. 279/2. The *Sucking Mouth exhibits … three different forms, the proboscis, the promuscis, and the antlia.
1895. D. Sharp, Insects, in Cambr. Nat. Hist., V. 467. The *sucking-spears of this Insect are so long and slender as to look like hairs.
1868. Rep. U. S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 310. The *sucking tube, or tongue [of hymenoptera].
