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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



... dying, a prisoner in the power of the foreign wolves who were tearing out his country's heart. It is little wonder indeed that Montezuma rent the bandages from his wounds and would not suffer them to tend his hurts. For the real hurt was in his soul; there the iron had entered deeply, and no leech could cure it except one called Death. And yet the fault was not all his, the devils whom he worshipped as gods were revenged upon him, for they had filled him with the superstitions of their wicked faith, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of the profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of devoted men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as a whole, broadening out from the frowsy den of the "leech," with its crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing and economic life of ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... in which the tail of a fish acts in propelling the fish; as in the eel, snake and leech. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... a right to your own opinion, my lad," said Shaddy quietly, "but I suppose you believe that if you dabbled your legs in the water a leech might fix on you and suck ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... see nothing but the terrible white tusks just before my nose, the red tongue all covered with white foam. But at the same instant, another dark body was whisking before me like a ball—it was my darling Tresor defending me; and he hung like a leech on the brute's throat! The creature wheezed, grated its teeth and staggered back. I instantly flung open the door and got into the hall.... I stood hardly knowing what I was doing with my whole weight ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev


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