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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



... puffed up O'erblown with haste. See how our years weigh, cousin. Who'd judge me with this paunch a temperate man, A man of modest means, a man withal Scarce overpast his prime? Well, God be praised, If age bring no worse burden! Who is this stranger? Simon the Leech tells me he claims to bear Some special message from the Lord—no doubt To-morrow, fresh from rest, he'll publish it Within ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... thee appear? A surprise,—an emotion! When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it? how works it?... We scarcely detect it. But life goes: the heart dies: haste, O leech, and dissect it! This accursed aesthetical, ethical age Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page, That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story With its fables of faery, its legends of glory, Is turn'd to ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... 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 before would not have dared to raise ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Inn friend, on a time, hurt one of his legs, and it became seriously inflamed. Not knowing of his indisposition, I was on my way to visit him as usual, one summer evening, when I was much surprised by meeting a lively leech in Field-court, Gray's Inn, seemingly on his way to the West End of London. As the leech was alone, and was of course unable to explain his position, even if he had been inclined to do so (which he had not the appearance of being), I passed him and went ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... then back at the Saxon, who moved no muscle of his face, though one might see that his eyes twinkled. And I looked at the riggers also, and saw that the Saxon was right, and that the men had the square-cut sail turned over with the leech forward and the luff aft. The sail was half laced to the yard, and none but a man who knew much of ships would have seen that ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler


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