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Leech   /litʃ/   Listen
noun
Leech  n.  See 2d Leach.


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.


verb
Leech  v. t.  See Leach, v. t.


Leech  v. t.  (past & past part. leeched; pres. part. leeching)  
1.
To treat as a surgeon; to doctor; as, to leech wounds. (Archaic)
2.
To bleed by the use of leeches.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Leech" Quotes from Famous Books



... you mean our priests and spiritual writers, it is because they study it. We believe in the science of the soul; and we consult our spiritual guides for our soul's health, as the leech for our ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... going through your blessed pockets and exploiting your holy dollars? No; you feel secure; "power is of the People," and you can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege—to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap! But then you are not "subjects;" you are "citizens"—there is much in that ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... keep from being hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for the little ship was bouncing back and forth so fast and so far that it was impossible to compare it with the motion of any other craft. Day began to dawn about 3 A.M. By the dim light I could make ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... son of Holy Church, His Most Christian Majesty, masquerading as the servant of a leech! Have a care, Master Leoni. You have a way of handling a lancet and letting your patients' blood. Recollect that kings have a way too of treating patients so that ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... were then again barred, and Cuthbert was carried up to a cell in the building, where the leech of the monastery speedily examined his wound, and pronounced, that although his life was not in danger by it, he was greatly weakened by the loss of blood, that the wound was a serious one, and that it would be some time before ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty


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