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sook


to baby someone (including animals, dolls, whatever): Some people really sook their dogs.

Contributor's comments: 'Sook' is not a verb, it is a noun! Or at least it has been in my Central Western NSW and Sydney metro vocabulary for 46 years. A sook is a babyish person, usually crying or whining about the unfairness of life. Legitimate quibbles will not attract the tag of 'sook'. So, if your leg has just been bitten off by a shark, and you are a trifle upset, you are not a sook. But if your sister got a slightly larger slice of cake than you, and you are weeping and whinging vociferously to your mother, you definately ARE a sook (at least in your sisters' eyes!).

Contributor's comments: I'm more familiar with this (from a 1950s/1960s childhood in Rockhampton, Townsville and Brisbane, Queensland) as a noun. Now largely displaced by 'wuss' (USA?): 'Brian is a real sook'.

Editor's comments: As a noun "sook" is a universal Australianism. As a verb it may be regional. Is anyone else familiar with the verbal use?

Contributor's comments: Hi. I submitted 'sook' in the first place, and I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I thought that I explained that it's primarily used as a noun & an adjective (sooky). Its use as a verb (which has been published in Word Map) is rare. Thanks!!

Contributor's comments: Noun. A kid who doesn't stand up for himself or who gets upset easily: "Johnno was crying because he got a little bee sting. What a sook!"

Contributor's comments: I'm surprised to see "sook" listed as a verb - growing up in Adelaide it was widely used as a noun in the senses other contributors have written. I'm astonished, though, not to see it shown as a SA term - it was one of the earliest words that I can recall used to demonstrate regionalisms - as an Adelaide word.