Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also sucker-up, sucky) one who curries favour with others, a toady, a parasite.

1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 170: He wasn’t a queer or a reporter or any of those other creep suck-ups who were coming around that summer.
1977		A. Bleasdale No More Sitting on the Old School Bench (1979) 61: Come on, Jacqueline, we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. How about that? (The start of cries of ‘suck-up’ and ‘Creep creep’).
1997		Asbury Park Press (NJ) Section D 9 Mar. 58/3: We may loathe suck-ups, but [...] we all do it [...] kissing up to the boss [...] pays off.
1999		Indep. Business Rev. 21 July 7: Suck-up Simon takes the cake.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 194: One of Apeman’s lackey suck-ups, a skinny white guy.
2008		W.D. Myers Game 66: [A] kick-butt general who [...] had to deal with Iago and all the other suckies around him.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 57: Fag hags, anonymous suck-ups to the stars.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 528: Know what I call Popes? Gwoupies. Suckers-Up. Bwown-Noses. Lickspittles.

2. (Aus.) toadying.

2018

G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘Quit the suck-up, Conquest, and get on with it’.

3. attrib. use of sense 1.

2003

Mad mag. Sept. 17: Interview prospective annoying suck-up sidekicks.