Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The wind-hover or kestrel.
- noun A person ready to pounce on any one, or on any blemish or weak point.
- noun A crib-biter.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Far.) A horse given to wind-sucking.
- noun (Zoöl.) The kestrel.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Old Silvertail, having become a confirmed wind-sucker, had been deported to the Mobile Veterinary Section; Tommy, the shapely bay I was now riding, had been transferred to me by our ex-adjutant, Castle, who had trained him to be well-mannered and adaptable.
Pushed and the Return Push George Herbert Fosdike Nichols
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He was always lurking about people's stables talking to grooms and worming out secrets -- whose horse had a cough, whose was a wind-sucker, whose was lame after hunting, and so on -- and had a price current of every horse in the place -- knew what had been given, what the owners asked, and had a pretty good guess what they would take.
Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour Robert Smith Surtees 1833
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But it would be something too extravagant for the veriest wind-sucker among commentators to start a theory that a revision was made of his original work by Marlowe after additions had been made to it by Shakespeare; yet we have seen that the most unmistakable signs of Marlowe's handiwork, the passages which show most plainly the personal and present seal of his genius, belong to the play only in its revised form; while there is no part of the whole composition which can so confidently be assigned to Shakespeare as to the one man then capable of such work, as can an entire and important episode of the play in its unrevised state.
A Study of Shakespeare Algernon Charles Swinburne 1873
she commented on the word wind-sucker
Envious, covetous person. Originally referred to a species of hawk that feeds on mice and hovers greedily, almost motionless, in the air over its prey. (Chapman used the term to criticize Ben Johnson in the preface to his Iliad, saying, "There is a certain envious wind-sucker that hovers up and down, laboriously ingrossing sic all the air with his luxurious ambition.")
July 11, 2008
sionnach commented on the word wind-sucker
See windhover. It's that lugubrious Jesuit again! Another name for windhover is windfucker. Really.
July 11, 2008
she commented on the word wind-sucker
Hmn, it seems unlikely that going down the path of windfucking would really get you anywhere..
July 11, 2008