sunker n also sunker rock DC ~ Nfld (1955-) for sense 1.
1 A submerged rock over which the sea breaks; familiar form of SUNKEN ROCK; BREAKER; GROUNDER.
[c1880] 1927 DOYLE (ed) 29 The Ryans and the Pittmans": We'll rant and we'll roar like true Newfoundlanders, / We'll rant and we'll roar on deck and below, / Until we see bottom inside the two sunkers, / When straight thru the Channel to Toslow we'll go. 1896 J A Folklore ix, 33 ~ a breaker. 1937 DEVINE 50 ~ A dangerous rock or shoal having only a few feet of water on it at high tide. 1951 Nfld & Lab Pilot i, 134 These latter include Duck Rock shoal, about 4 cables north-eastward of Eastern head and Anchor Cove Stinkers, about one mile farther north-north-eastward; both these dangers have depths of less than 6 feet over them. [1952] 1965 PEACOCK (ed) i, 143 Skipper Tom": Down to the sunker I anchored so fair, / Hand over me lines and never one tear. T 141/69-652 But she struck fair, broadside, on the looward sunker. 1966 SCAMMELL 62 I'm not much of a hand at public meetings. The words don't seem to have a clear channel from me brain to me lips. Too many sunkers for 'em to ground on, I spose. T 727-68 There's a sunker over there—a sunken rock. You know, when the water's high, it bees under water, but when the water falls down low, real low tide, the kelp comes on un. 1974 PITTMAN 15 The sunkers of Merasheen are the world's worst curse to mothers and mariners alike. When the sea is still, they lie like sleeping monsters below the surface at the harbour's mouth and only a master mariner can tell that they are there at all. But when they are breaking, when the sea erupts over them in a boiling mass of white foam smashing itself to smithereens high in the harbour air, their deadly presence is plain for all to see. High on the cliffs along the northern rim of the harbour, all the white crosses, glistening now in the uncertain morning sun, mark with grim fidelity the unmarkable graves of seamen killed by the sunkers. 1977 BUTLER 76 We were among the Follock rocks and sunkers were breaking mountains high all around us.
2 A dumpling in a bowl of soup (C 66-4).
