1933 N. Scanlan Tides of Youth xv. 155 He looked a big sookie and wouldn't say a word.

1941 S. J. Baker Pop. Dict. Austral. Slang 69 Sook, a coward, a timid person.

1950 ‘B. James’ Advancement of Spencer Button 9 If he nervously declares he can't fight, and shows that he doesn't want to fight, then he is a ‘sook’ or a ‘sissy’.

1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 79 She may be reviled as a cissy, a sook.

1970 P. White Vivisector 11 He wasn't a sook. He could run, shout, play, fight, had scabs on his knees, and twice split Billy Abrams's lip, who was two years older.

1975 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 2 Jan. 9/4 The tough specimen might appear as somewhat of a myth by fearing to be different from his mates in case they might think him a bit of a sook.

1953 D. Cusack Southern Steel 328 Get along with you: you're getting real sookey.

1964 Weekly News (Auckland) 18 Mar. 58/3 The boys say they feel sooky wearing caps.

1970 N.Z. Listener 12 Oct. 13/5 Their attitude of tolerant resignation toward the sooky Maoris who are always getting into trouble.

1950 Sun (Baltimore) 10 Oct. 32/2 ‘Sooks’ are female blue crabs. Their annual migration..has been under way for a month.

1978 J. A. Michener Chesapeake 647 He [sc. a blue crab] forgot his own preoccupations in order to swim among the grasses, looking for sooks which had been by-passed in the earlier mating periods. These overlooked females, on their way south to spend the winter near the entrance of the bay, where fertile sooks traditionally prepared to lay their eggs, sent out frantic signals to whatever males might be in the vicinity, for this was the final period in which they could be fertilized.

1850 L. H. Garrard Wah-to-Yah xii. 178 The..cows looked quite different from the patient, chewing ‘Suke’ of the American farmer.

1867 G. W. Harris Sut Lovingood 24 Yu mout jis' es well say..Suke cow tu a gal.

1880 W. H. Patterson Gloss. Words Antrim & Down 101 Suck! Suck! a call to a calf.

1893 H. A. Shands Some Peculiarities Speech Mississippi 76 Suke (sûk), the commonly used word for calling cows. The word cow is sometimes added to it, so as to make sukow (sûkau), the u being long drawn out in the pronunciation.

1897 Amer. Anthropologist 10 98 In Virginia and Alabama it [sc. the call to a cow] becomes sookow, sookow.

1906 H. Pittman Belle of Bluegrass Country xii. 176 ‘Sook Cow, Sook Cow,’ called the milker.

1961 Amer. Speech 36 266 [The expression] sook boss..is an obvious combination of Midland sook! and Northern boss!, both calls to cows in pasture.

1978 A. Fenton Northern Isles liii. 438 Orkney call words to calves were peed.., and ‘sook! sook!’ or ‘sucko! sucko!’ (from ‘suck’).

1838 B. Drake Tales & Sketches 154 With a bellicose bellow, forwards and downwards went the old sukey.

1844 R. Huddlestone Poems 67 Here's the merchant for the ca'ves... Sucky's tae the fox gane.

1892 Dial. Notes 1 237 Suke. Cows are often called by the word sûk or sûki (Kansas City).

1922 J. Sillars McBrides iii. 36 The lassies laughed and cried ‘suckie, suckie’, and put on their boots.

1930 F. Niven Three Marys ix. 56 Mary's cry of ‘Sookie, sookie, sookie!’ sounded at the ordained times.

1940 J. Stuart Trees of Heaven 82 Anse calls, ‘Swookie, swookie, cows!’