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suckle

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Etymology and origin of the English word suckle

Pronunciation

  • /ˈsʌk.əl/[1]

suckle1 clover, honeysuckle

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Clipping
First attested
c. 1400 Daniel's Herbal
Ultimate origin
Middle English honisoukel

Etymology

The word for clover and honeysuckle is inherited from Middle English sukel, also sokel and soukle,[2] from Middle English honisoukel (“honeysuckle”), apparently by shortening.[3][4][5][6] The Middle English Dictionary likewise takes it as probably the second element of that compound.[2] The OED compares suckling in its plant sense.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Clover, or its flower: about 1400, in Daniel's herbal, which compares the flower of chives to the top of the plant.[2] The OED's first record is figurative, about 1425, in The Castle of Perseverance.[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the name mostly meant clover, probably the common red or purple kind, and could be qualified as red or water sukel; a compound with blom may have meant the flower of honeysuckle.[2] The clover sense lasted to the early 18th century according to the Shorter Oxford.[5] The word for honeysuckle itself is a later poetic and dialect use, recorded from 1816, in L. Hunt's Story of Rimini.[3][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has the variant sucklebush.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – sowkle, clover.[2]
  • c. 1425 – figurative use, in The Castle of Perseverance.[3]
  • before 1500 – suckle-bloom, glossing Latin locusta.[3]
  • 1816 – honeysuckle.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (poetic, dialect) Honeysuckle.[5][4][3]
  2. (obsolete) Clover.[5][2]

suckle2 to nurse

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Back-formation
First attested
1408 Wycliffite Bible
From
Middle English suclen
Ultimate origin
Old English sūcan

Etymology

The word for nursing at the breast is inherited from Middle English suclen,[7][8] probably a back-formation from suckling,[4][9][10][5][11] Middle English suklinge.[12] The OED calls the formation obscure: the word is usually taken as suck with the suffix -le, but the suffix's ordinary frequentative meaning does not suit it, and suckling is first recorded about 1440, after the verb.[3] Etymonline makes the same point about the dates and still offers a causative or frequentative of suken (“to suck”) as a possibility,[13] and Klein and Dictionary.com take the word as suck with this suffix.[6][14] Barnhart, too, finds the suffix unsuited to the sense, and offers a back-formation from sucking as another possibility.[7] Suck is from Old English sūcan.[3][13][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give suck to a child, to nurse at the breast: 1408, in a manuscript of the Wycliffite Bible, at Job 3:12.[3][8] Barnhart gives before 1425 for that version,[7] Etymonline about 1400,[13] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged the 14th century.[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense has remained the main one, and it is used of animals as well as of people.[5][15] Johnson (1755) defined the verb simply as "to nurse at the breast", quoting Shakespeare on Hecuba and Addison on Romulus, suckled by a wolf.[15] From 1654 it could be figurative, of bringing someone up on something, as if on milk.[3][5] In the 16th century it also came to mean putting a young animal to the teat, a use that is now rare.[3][5] The opposite point of view, the young animal or baby sucking at the breast, is recorded from 1688,[3] and the transitive use with the breast or teat as object from 1971.[3][5] A rare noun was formed from the verb, used for a suckling organ in 1638 and locally for a suckling-house for lambs from 1805.[3][5]

Timeline

  • 1408 – to give suck to, to nurse a child at the breast.[3]
  • c. 1523 – to put a young animal to suck, in Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry.[3]
  • 1638 – noun, a suckling organ (obsolete and rare).[3]
  • 1654 – figurative, to nourish with or bring up on something.[3]
  • 1688 – intransitive, to suck at the breast.[3]
  • 1805 – noun, a suckling-house for lambs (local).[3]
  • 1971 – transitive, to suck milk from the breast or teat.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To feed a baby or young animal with milk from the breast or teat: The ewe suckled both lambs in the shed.[9][4][5]
  2. Of a baby or young animal, to take milk from the breast or teat.[9][4][5]
  3. To bring up or nurture on something: a generation suckled on old legends.[9][4][3]
  4. (rare) To cause a young animal to feed from the teat.[3][5]

Noun

  1. (local) A suckling-house for lambs.[3][5]

Word family

  • unsuckled
  • suckler
  • suckling
  • suck
  • sucking
  • honeysuckle

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
Cite this entry

“Suckle.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/suckle. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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