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Glite Dictionary
to suck the kumara

to suck the kumara

9.9
To accept and deal with something bad or disappointing
  • idiom
  • New Zealand
translation icon : aguantar
  • Sometimes you just have to suck the kumara and move on.

Examples

  • I had to suck the kumara when I lost my job!

  • After getting a pay cut, he told everyone he would just have to suck the kumara for a while.

  • The meal was so bland that it felt like I had to suck the kumara.

  • When the team lost the finals, the fans really had to suck the kumara.

  • After getting a pay cut, he told everyone he would just have to suck the kumara for a while.

  • When the team lost the finals, the fans really had to suck the kumara and support them.

  • Sometimes you just have to suck the kumara and accept life's challenges.

Synonyms

to suck a lemon
vsto suck the kumara
  • Informal
9.9

To accept and deal with an unpleasant situation without complaining

sometimes expresses enjoyment or describes bad taste rather than plain resignation

Antonyms

to enjoy
∞ 1.0

To feel happy because of something you do or see

to savor
  • US
4 3.9

To give food a certain taste with spices or herbs

How Difficult

to grin and bear it
  • Informal
5 6.8
to suck the kumara
  • New Zealand
9.9
to put up with
288 4.3
to tolerate
290 3.5

Surface Forms

suck the kumara infinitive
sucked the kumara past
sucked the kumara past participle
sucking the kumara present participle
sucks the kumara third person singular

Morphology

suck + the + kumara

Even if a learner knows 'suck' and 'kumara' (kumara = New Zealand sweet potato), the idiomatic meaning 'to endure hardship' or its ironic senses does not follow transparently from literally sucking a vegetable. The phrase is regionally specific, metaphorical, and variable in use, so its meaning would not be reliably derivable by a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words.

Etymology

Suck the kumara comes from old New Zealand life, where people sometimes had only dry kumara, a sweet potato, and had to literally suck it to get any taste. That image of getting through a bad time with what you have is why the phrase means 'to endure hardship' or, sometimes jokingly, 'to put up with something unpleasant'.