pucker

Probable alteration of poke (verb, or the noun meaning "a small bag").

pucker (third-person singular simple present puckers, present participle puckering, simple past and past participle puckered)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To pinch or wrinkle; to squeeze inwardly, to dimple or fold.
   • 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 13.

     The conduct of the white strangers it was that caused him the greatest perturbation. He puckered his brows into a frown of deep thought.

   • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Crooked Man".

     He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were shot with gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple.

• pucker up

pucker (plural puckers)

1. A fold or wrinkle.
   • 1921, Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow, Chapter 3.

     The mouth was compressed, and on either side of it two tiny wrinkles had formed themselves in her cheeks. An infinity of slightly malicious amusement lurked in those little folds, in the puckers about the half-closed eyes, in the eyes themselves, bright and laughing between the narrowed lids.

2. (colloquial) A state of perplexity or anxiety; confusion; bother; agitation.
   • 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd.

     What a pucker everything is in!" said Bathsheba, discontentedly when the child had gone. "Get away, Maryann, or go on with your scrubbing, or do something! You ought to be married by this time, and not here troubling me!"