Antedating of "Suck"

[Jonathan Lighter]

A sexual context but not specifically a "sexual sense."

An explicitly "sexual sense," to my way of thinking, would have to be either
intransitive or have a personal direct object. Cf.:

ca1866 _The Romance of Lust_ 26 (rpt. N.Y.: Grove Press, 1968) : To try
again to fuck her as well as suck her.
1975 Joseph Wambaugh _The Choirboys_ 301 (rpt. N.Y.: Dell, 1976) : Look, do
you suck or not?

HDAS files has an intrans. ex. from 1951.


JL

On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Antedating of "Suck"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A website at www.londonlives.org has a very interesting searchable corpus
> of manuscripts and printed materials relating to "Crime, Poverty, and Social
> Policy in the Metropolis" between 1690 and 1800.  Here is a citation for the
> verb "suck" in its sexual sense, much before the 1928 first use in the
> Oxford English Dictionary (but note 1891 citation in OED s.v. _cocksucker_):
>
>
> 1772 _Old Bailey Proceedings_ 9 Sept. (www.londonlives.org)   John Gray <
> no role > . Crook was brought to our watch-house, in Swan-yard, on Monday
> morning, by Dennis; Crook said that on the 3d of September he left off work
> in the evening, about seven o'clock; went to the Red Lion in Moorfields, to
> drink a pint of beer; that just as he had drunk the beer, Gibson came in and
> sat down by him; that Gibson asked him to drink with him; that when he
> called for another pint, he asked him if he knew Dick that had lived there;
> said he, he had a fine - fit to do Mrs. - ; he said after that, he went out
> at the door to make water, and Gibson followed him, and said, what sort of a
> c - k have you got? Dick was just such another slim young man as you; let me
> teel it; which he did; he said it was not so big as his; that then he took
> him down to the vault, forced him down on the seat, onbuttoned his breeches,
> then worked him till he made it come, and then sucked it; that he worked it
> again s!
>  ometime; that then he pressed him very close, called him his dear, hugged
> him and squeezed him and sat down, put his hand behind him, and put it into
> his b - e, and worked up and down till he hurt him vastly, and he believed
> made him bleed.
>
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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