Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general pej. description of a person; a strong term of abuse; note the weaker sucker n.¹ (3d)

1866		Border Watch (Mt Gambier, SA) 31 Oct. 3/2: THE LATEST SLANG CREATION IN NEW YORK [...] His enemies are ‘hits and suckers’.
1894		Mirror of Life 3 Nov. 15/3: ‘[Y]ou get your friends [...] here; and I’ll be back with the sucker in fifteen minutes’.
1930		(con. 1918) J. Hanley German Prisoner 19: ‘You lump of shite [...] When you’ve learned to piss in your cap, you sucker, you’ll have room to talk’.
1933		C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 158: Some of those suckers would call indigestion the googooblitis and swear that your days were numbered.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 31: Don’t be a sucker.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 24: Bound for the Pacific [...] every damn sucker.
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 27: The sucker trusts me . . . not enough to give me anything, but enough to show up.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 214: He was the motherfucker that whacked that sucker.
1999		Observer Escape 24 Oct. 6: I’ve lost around $400 on this sucker!
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 18: She couldn’t call these suckers suckers.

2. an object, irrespective of quality.

1938		in Liebling Back Where I Came From 227: [of a racehorse] Eddie [Arcaro, the horse's jockey] said, ‘I bounced the sucker out in front when the man throwd it [i.e. started the race], and then at the eighth pole I showered down’ .
1956		R. Ellison ‘A Coupla Scalped Indians’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 264: We coulda barbecued a damn elephant while we was waiting for a tough sucker like that to get done.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 137: I filed the trigger on this sucker so it’ll spring off if I breathe too deep.
1997		J. Birmingham Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (1998) 196: I had to leap and run to the window to vomit. [...] ‘Bummer,’ said Flinthart. ‘Really shoulda opened that sucker before you hosed her down, JB.’.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 23: Bookmark that sucker! [Ibid.] 230: Twist the cap off that sucker [i.e. a pill-bottle].
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] I mixed a large beer and tomato juice and drank that sucker down.
2020		A. Trebek The Answer Is 266: But if I get a leak I can drag that sucker [i.e. a propane burner] onto the roof and do my thing.