Sucan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic Old English verb meaning to draw liquid or air into the mouth by suction, as an infant does at the breast
2. A historical English verb for drawing something into the mouth through suction, the ancestor of the modern verb to suck
3. Obsolete Old English term describing the act of pulling fluid into the mouth with the lips and tongue

Etymology: Old English "sūcan" meant "to suck," and it is the ancestor of the modern verb, though the spelling and sound shifted over the centuries. Its history is ordinary and well documented: it comes from a Germanic root shared with Old Norse "suga," Dutch "zuigen," and German "saugen," all meaning the same thing. Scholars reconstruct that root as "sūganą, which is why the Germanic cognates line up so neatly. Its ancestry reaches further back still, to the Proto-Indo-European root "seug-, also meaning to suck. The Latin "sugere" and Greek "hyzein" come from the same source, which is why English "suck" has relatives in the classical languages even though it arrived by a different route.