Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to feel like a sucker

to feel like a sucker

1 8.6
To think you were tricked and regret trusting someone
  • idiom
  • Offensive
translation icon : sentirse tonto
  • Maybe he'd feel like a sucker, or maybe he'd just be pissed.

As much as it makes you feel like a sucker in this relationship, it may be just what gets you out psychologically alive.

Examples

  • Tammy often feels like a sucker when she buys expensive items without checking for sales first.

  • You never know what you want to think like that or if you feel like a sucker for things like that.

    Blog text (29)

  • She felt like a sucker, and it was really bothering her.

    Blog text (13)

  • Look at Greece—there's no real incentive to work hard because so many of their neighbors are on the dole, cheating on taxes, so you feel like a sucker if you take responsibility for yourself and follow the law.

    Blog text (33)

  • After falling for the scam email, I really feel like a sucker.

  • He felt like a sucker after realizing he had been tricked into giving away his money.

Synonyms

to be a chump
vsto feel like a sucker
  • Offensive
3 9.2

To act foolishly and let people trick you

is about feeling foolish afterward rather than acting that way
to feel like a sap
vsto feel like a sucker
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To feel silly for believing someone who tricked you

is stronger, involving real exploitation rather than simple trickery
to fall for someone's charming lines
vsto feel like a sucker
  • Informal
8.1

To be tricked by someone's flattering words

is a general feeling of being fooled, not only caused by flattery

Antonyms

wise
758 2.1

Showing good judgment from experience

alert
82 2.8

Quick to notice and respond to what is happening

How Foolish

to feel like a sucker
  • Offensive
1 8.6

Surface Forms

feel like a sucker infinitive
felt like a sucker past
felt like a sucker past participle
feeling like a sucker present participle
feels like a sucker third person singular

Morphology

feel + like + a + sucker

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'feel' (experience) + 'like' (as if) + 'sucker' (a gullible person), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer 'to feel foolish or deceived.' This is a straightforward simile/comparative construction with cross-linguistic parallels and no significant idiomatic shift, making it accessible to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Feel like a sucker may come from the picture of someone being 'sucked in' by a trick, like a fish taking bait. If you are the sucker who takes the bait, you feel foolish and used, so the phrase means 'to feel foolish or deceived'.