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Leach   /litʃ/   Listen
verb
Leach  v. t.  (past & past part. leached; pres. part. leaching)  
1.
To remove the soluble constituents from by subjecting to the action of percolating water or other liquid; as, to leach ashes or coffee.
2.
To dissolve out; often used with out; as, to leach out alkali from ashes.



Leach  v. i.  To part with soluble constituents by percolation.



noun
Leach  n.  (Naut.) See 3d Leech.



Leach  n.  (Written also letch)  
1.
A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
2.
A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
Leach tub, a wooden tub in which ashes are leached.



Leach  n.  See Leech, a physician. (Obs.)



Leech  n.  (Written also leach)  (Naut.) The border or edge at the side of a sail.
Leech line, a line attached to the leech ropes of sails, passing up through blocks on the yards, to haul the leeches by.
Leech rope, that part of the boltrope to which the side of a sail is sewed.



Leech  n.  
1.
A physician or surgeon; a professor of the art of healing. (Written also leach) (Archaic) "Leech, heal thyself."
2.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous genera and species of annulose worms, belonging to the order Hirudinea, or Bdelloidea, esp. those species used in medicine, as Hirudo medicinalis of Europe, and allied species. Note: In the mouth of bloodsucking leeches are three convergent, serrated jaws, moved by strong muscles. By the motion of these jaws a stellate incision is made in the skin, through which the leech sucks blood till it is gorged, and then drops off. The stomach has large pouches on each side to hold the blood. The common large bloodsucking leech of America (Macrobdella decora) is dark olive above, and red below, with black spots. Many kinds of leeches are parasitic on fishes; others feed upon worms and mollusks, and have no jaws for drawing blood. See Bdelloidea. Hirudinea, and Clepsine.
3.
(Surg.) A glass tube of peculiar construction, adapted for drawing blood from a scarified part by means of a vacuum.
Horse leech, a less powerful European leech (Haemopis vorax), commonly attacking the membrane that lines the inside of the mouth and nostrils of animals that drink at pools where it lives.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Leach" Quotes from Famous Books



... whom they employed were thrown out. And since self-acting mules have been introduced into a very large number of spinning-mills, the spinners' work is wholly performed by the machine. There lies before me a book from the pen of James Leach, {135} one of the recognised leaders of the Chartists in Manchester. The author has worked for years in various branches of industry, in mills and coal mines, and is known to me personally as an honest, trustworthy, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... others, advocated the idea of raising the streets they were ridiculed. But subsequent tests proved that beneath the surface there was a solid rock bottom, therefore it was impossible for the water to leach through. When this was an established fact, and therefore the grumblers were deprived of this excuse, the cry was raised that the city could not afford it. Against all obstacles the measure was carried, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... accounted for 9.0% of GDP in 1989; regularly produces less than 50% of food needs; the foothills of northern Bosnia support orchards, vineyards, livestock, and some wheat and corn; long winters and heavy precipitation leach soil fertility reducing agricultural output in the mountains; farms are mostly privately held, small, and ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... derived from the Lat. Buteo, through the Fr. Busard, and used in a general sense for a large group of diurnal birds-of-prey, which contains, among many others, the species usually known as the common buzzard (Buteo vulgaris, Leach), though the English epithet is nowadays hardly applicable. The name buzzard, however, belongs quite as rightfully to the birds called in books "harriers," which form a distinct subfamily of Falconidae under the title Circinae, and by it one ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... on the earth about 7 inches below the surface. With each subsequent plowing the plow sole rides at the same 7-inch depth and an even more compacted layer develops. Once formed plowpan prevents the crop from rooting into the subsoil. Since winter rains leach nutrients from the topsoil and deposit them in the subsoil, plowpan prevents access to these nutrients and effectively impoverishes the field. So wise farmers periodically use a subsoil plow to fracture ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon


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