sucan

Forms

sūcan (strong class 2; third-person singular present sȳcþ, past singular sēac, past plural sucon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sūkan, from Proto-Germanic *sūkaną (“to suck”).^[1][2] Orel sets it beside Middle Dutch suken, the Middle Dutch verb, and relates it to Latin sūgō (“to suck”) and Old Irish súgim (“to suck”).^[3] Holthausen adds the Dutch dialect word zuiken and Westphalian forms, and compares the same Latin and Irish verbs.^[4] Köbler traces it to the root Proto-Indo-European *seug-, *sūg- (“sap; to suck”), an extension of Proto-Indo-European *sew- (“juice, sap”), following Pokorny.^[2] Wiktionary gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *suk-.^[1]

Old English also had a verb with ⟨g⟩, sūgan, which Wiktionary and Sweet treat as a parallel form of the same verb.^[1][5] It is a strong verb of the second class.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in a dated manuscript is in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, in the Cotton Julius E. vii copy of the early eleventh century: in the legend of Agatha the saint asks her torturer ne sceamode þe to ceorfanne þæt þæt ðu sylf suce? “were you not ashamed to cut off what you yourself once sucked?”, meaning the breast.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant drawing a liquid into the mouth, above all a child taking milk from the breast: the prose psalter has the children ðe meolc sūcaþ “who suck milk”, and the West Saxon Gospels render Latin suxisti in the blessing on the breasts ðe ðū suce.^[6] It also translates Latin sugo in Ælfric's Grammar and the drawing up of moisture by the air in a scientific text.^[6] Köbler records it as a gloss of Latin sugere.^[2] Clark Hall lists it in Ælfric, the Gospels, the metrical psalms and the Vespasian hymns.^[9]

The verb lived on as Middle English souken, first of a child feeding at the breast, and is now English suck.^[10][11]

Timeline

• s. xi in. – ðu sylf suce “you yourself sucked” in Ælfric's life of Agatha (Cotton Julius E. vii).^[7][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. to suck, draw a liquid into the mouth; of a child, to take milk from the breast.^[6][2][9]
2. to draw up moisture (of the air).^[6]

Word family

• āsūcan
• ġesūcan

Descendants

• Middle English souken (→ English suck)^[1]

Related words

• sūgan
• sȳcan

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. sūcan
3. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 388
4. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 329
5. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 186
6. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 932
7. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 282
8. ^ a b Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
9. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 325
10. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com