sucker
/ˈsʌk.ə/
"sucker" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sucker” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,248 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,248
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person or animal that sucks, especially a breast or udder; especially a suckling animal, young mammal before it is weaned.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sucker |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsʌk.ə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #13,248 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sucker” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sucker is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsʌk.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,248 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 18 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for sucker, with forms such as "scuker", "ssucker", and "succker". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "super", "sucks", "sucky", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English souker, sokere, sukkere, soukere, equivalent to suck (verb) + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Suuger, West Frisian sûker (“sucker”), Dutch zuiger (“sucker”), German Sauger (“dummy; vacuum”). The correct English form is sucker, spelled S-U-C-K-E-R.
Definition
- 1A person or animal that sucks, especially a breast or udder; especially a suckling animal, young mammal before it is weaned.
- 2An undesired stem growing out of the roots or lower trunk of a shrub or tree, especially from the rootstock of a grafted plant or tree.
- 3A parasite; a sponger.
- 4An organ or body part that does the sucking; especially a round structure on the bodies of some insects, frogs, and octopuses that allows them to stick to surfaces.
- 5A thing that works by sucking something.
- 6The embolus, or bucket, of a pump; also, the valve of a pump basket.
- 7A pipe through which anything is drawn.
- 8A small piece of leather, usually round, having a string attached to the center, which, when saturated with water and pressed upon a stone or other body having a smooth surface, adheres, by reason of the atmospheric pressure, with such force as to enable a considerable weight to be thus lifted by the string; formerly used by children as a plaything.
- 9A suction cup.
- 10An animal such as the octopus and remora, which adhere to other bodies with such organs.
- 11Any fish in the family Catostomidae of North America and eastern Asia, which have mouths modified into downward-pointing, suckerlike structures for feeding in bottom sediments.
- 12A lollipop; a piece of candy which is sucked.
- 13A hard drinker.
- 14An inhabitant of Illinois.
- 15A migrant lead miner working in the Driftless Area of northwest Illinois, southwest Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa, working in summer and leaving for winter, so named because of the similarity to the migratory patterns of the North American Catostomidae.
- 16A person who is easily deceived, tricked or persuaded to do something; a naive or gullible person.
- 17A person irresistibly attracted by something specified.
- 18The penis.
Etymology
From Middle English souker, sokere, sukkere, soukere, equivalent to suck (verb) + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Suuger, West Frisian sûker (“sucker”), Dutch zuiger (“sucker”), German Sauger (“dummy; vacuum”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: scuker,ssucker,succker,sucekr,suckerr,suckker,suckre,sukcer,uscker
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sucker - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “sucker”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-C-K-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsʌk.ə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “super” - see the side-by-side comparison. sucker vs super
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.