5. A small piece of leather, usually round, having a string attached to
the center, which, when saturated with water and pressed upon a stone
or other body having a smooth surface, adheres, by reason of the
atmospheric pressure, with such force as to enable a considerable
weight to be thus lifted by the string; -- used by children as a
plaything.
6. (Bot.) A shoot from the roots or lower part of the stem of a plant;
-- so called, perhaps, from diverting nourishment from the body of the
plant.
7. (Zoöl.) (a) Any one of numerous species of North American
fresh-water cyprinoid fishes of the family Catostomidæ; so called
because the lips are protrusile. The flesh is coarse, and they are of
little value as food. The most common species of the Eastern United
States are the northern sucker (Catostomus Commersoni), the white
sucker (C. teres), the hog sucker (C. nigricans), and the chub, or
sweet sucker (Erimyzon sucetta). Some of the large Western species are
called buffalo fish, red horse, black horse, and suckerel. (b) The
remora. (c) The lumpfish. (d) The hagfish, or myxine. (e) A California
food fish (Menticirrus undulatus) closely allied to the kingfish (a);
-- called also bagre.