Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also suck round, suck up to) to curry favour (with), to be obsequious (to), to grovel shamelessly (to) in return for favours, esteem etc; thus sucking up n.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 315: suck up ‘to suck up to a person,’ to insinuate oneself into his good graces.
1861		Hills & Plains I 43: [T]hey were not lie other fellows ‘mugging up’ languages and ‘sucking’ far and wide for staff appointments.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1897		Kipling ‘Slaves of the Lamp — Part I’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 57: That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He’s always suckin’ up to King.
1908		Magnet 15 Feb. 6: What are you sucking up to the new kid for, Nugent?
1913		A. Lunn Harrovians 192: A boy is always an uncertain quality. He does not mind being ‘sucked up to’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 292: Round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get.
1939		A. Bessie Men in Battle 166: In all his political talks he favored the Spanish, ‘sucked up to them,’ the men would say.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 169: Thus a boy is said tosuck roundd, if he tries to ingratiate himself, or he maysuck upp to a master.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 290: I could be a noncom now if I wanted to [...] suck the way Stanley does.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 33: Sucking up to coppers won’t get you anything arround here.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 127: He was the Acting Unpaid Lance-Corporal sucking up to his immediate superior, for the sake of a stripe of tape.
1961		T. Murphy Whistle in the Dark Act II: You suck up to them, I fight them.
1963		Dundes & Schonhorn ‘Kansas University Sl.: A New Generation’ in AS XXXVIII:3 169: To curry favor with a professor: suck.
1976		J. Heller Good As Gold (1979) 340: Sophie and I had dinner at the White House once, you know. And we got there on my merits, not by sucking up to an anti-Semitt like Ralph.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 127: Sucking up to your betters [...] can only take you so far.
1992		M. Coleman Fatty 219: The book said the Queenslanders called Wynn and Pearce the ‘Suck Brothers’ for their relationship with Fearnley.
1999		Guardian Weekend 14 Aug. 3: He sucks up to anyone famous.
2001		Week (US) 27 Apr. 12: Russia pretends to be rejecting the West, when it knows it needs to suck up instead.
2009		P. Temple Truth 97: This shoddy little arsehole, a nothing, no talents, just a political creature who knew how to slime around, [...] how to suck up to those who could advance him.
2016		Young M.A. ‘Eat’ 🎵 You know haters gon’ dickride they gon’ still suck you.
2023		J. Jackson Pineapple Street 21: Georgiana was in the communications department, so her job was to suck up to the [...] donors.

2. to drink.

1954		J.E. Macdonnell Jim Brady 209: How about we suck a jug or two, eh?
1956		H.S. Thompson letter 1 Dec. in Proud Highway (1997) 33: I’m going out to look for someone to [...] suck up a few with me at a smoky grotto called ‘Trader John’s’.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 43: suck up (v.): Drink up; used in a gay bar for last call: ‘Suck up, everybody, motel time’.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 110: Hell if he was out hittin’ it las’ night chances are he’d be in there right now suckin’ up a few mornin’ taps.