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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



... the years 1862-3 various translations of his appeared in Once a Week, a magazine that then numbered amongst its contributors such writers as Harriet Martineau and S. Baring-Gould, and artists as Leech, Keene, Tenniel, Millais and Du Maurier. Amongst these translations were "The Hailstorm, or the Death of Bui," from the ancient Norse; "The Count of Vendal's Daughter," from the ancient Danish; "Harald Harfagr," ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... I had so embarrassed myself, that my whole attention was engaged in contriving excuses, and raising small sums to quiet such as words would no longer mollify. It cost me eighty pounds in presents to Mr. Leech the attorney, for his forbearance of one hundred, which he solicited me to take when I had no need. I was perpetually harassed with importunate demands, and insulted by wretches, who a few months ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... overhead, to alight with a drum-boom and burst with a cymbal crash; the whole orchestra of battle was playing—it seemed that everyone must recognise the air—"The Ride of the Valkyrie;" and now the driving rain and the salt spindrift, the flapping of the leech of our brown sail, every note of accompaniment is being given to that great air that runs through Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, which the wind is singing louder and louder. Tim sits up well to windward, the tiller quivering in ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... Dear old John Leech! What an eye he had for the man who hunts and doesn't like it! But for such, as a pictorial chronicler of the hunting field he would have had no fame. Briggs, I fancy, in his way did like it. Briggs was a full-blooded, up-apt, awkward, sanguine man, who was able to like anything, ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... father-in-law—well, that's your look out. As for me, if only I can unmask a downright lie, I am quite content to look death itself between the eyes immediately after. Ever since you fainted at the prick of a leech, and were not ashamed to burst into tears when I cut out one of your warts, I knew you to be a coward. Yes, a coward you are, and a very poor creature to boot; but whatever else I am, I am not that. Twice have I broken the bone of my own leg because it was improperly set, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai


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