Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a parasite, a toady, a sycophant.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 231: suck a parasite, flatterer of the ‘nobs.’ ? University.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 112/2: But by persuasion of the ‘sucks’ and a few others who wanted to witness a ‘slog,’ a match was got up between Joe and Jack to fight the following Sunday.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 20/1: Pooh! And what would the world be without its sycophant ‘sucks,’ who are ever on the look-out for an opportunity of grovelling in the presence of wealth or titles?
1897		Worker (Brisbane) 4 Sept. 8/4: While he who ‘crawls’ and ‘runs the cut,’ and lacks a bushman’s pluck, / Is known by men as ‘smoodger,’ while the tar-boys call him ‘suck.’.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 146: SUCK, SUCKER: a sponger [...] SUCK, OR SUCKHOLE OR SUCK-ARSE: a low-down cringing sycophant.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 6: You are McGlade’s suck. Suck was a queer word. The fellow called Simon Moonan that name because Simon Moonan used to tie the prefect’s false sleeves behind his back and the prefect used to let on to be angry.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 168: suck. The activities of the toady are generally referred to in terms ofoill (q.v.) or suck [...] At Colston’s (1884+) a master’s favourite was a special suck.
1942		(con. 1890s) S. O’Casey Pictures in the Hallway 124: Not like th’ rest o’ them here, nose-rags, toe-rags, flittin afther Mr. Anthony here, an’ Mr. Hewson there, sucks who would sell their mothers for a smile from a boss.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time app. C 212: I fell into a good office job which means I have the run of the place without too many restrictions. But because of my job some of the crims think I’m a suck.
1988		M. Atwood Cat’s Eye (1989) 208: They [girls] can be brains and sucks and brown-nosers, like boys, if they are thought to study too much.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 33: I got good marks. I was quiet. Sir, I was a suck.
1998		Bug (Aus.) 24 Feb. 🌐 Of course, that born-again, new-age league suck, George Piggins, called them faeces.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘It’s just so crisp, classic. Timeless, don’t you think?’ ‘Absolutely.’ God I could be a suck.

2. (Irish) a first-year school boy.

1996

(ref. to 1963) D. Healy Bend for Home 224: In the refectory, the sucks eye the seniors fearfully.

3. (Aus./Can.) a worthless, contemptible person (but NB sook n.

1965		F. Pollini Glover 305: We sure fooled them [...] Dumb sucks, never caught on.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘Fuck him. He’s just a big suck’.