• (British, America) enPR: lēch, IPA: /liːt͡ʃ/

From Middle English leche, from Old English lǣċe, akin to Middle Dutch lake "blood-sucking worm"; > modern Dutch laak.

leech (plural leeches)

1. An aquatic blood-sucking annelid of class Hirudinea, especially Hirudo medicinalis.
   • 2003, William W. Johnstone, The Last Of The Dog Team, page 195:

     The leech on his leg had swelled to more than five inches long, puffed and swollen on his blood.

2. (figuratively) A person who derives profit from others in a parasitic fashion.
   • 2000, Ray Garmon, The Man Who Just Didn't Care, page 20:

     'Wrecked his body and his mind, no use to hisself or his family or nobody, just a leech on society'.

   • 2006, D. L. Harman, A State of Nine One One, page 106:

     At this point, I felt this man was a leech. I suspected that he had spent a lifetime living off the good will of women that he met.

3. (medicine, dated) A glass tube designed for drawing blood from damaged tissue by means of a vacuum.

• (person who lives as a parasite) parasite, sponger, bloodsucker, vampire; See also Thesaurus:scrounger

• French: sangsue
• German: Blutegel, Egel
• Italian: sanguisuga, mignatta
• Portuguese: sanguessuga
• Russian: пия́вка
• Spanish: sanguijuela, sanguja, hirudíneo

• French: pot de colle
• German: Blutsauger, Blutsaugerin
• Russian: пия́вка

leech (leeches, present participle leeching; simple past and past participle leeched)

1. (transitive, literally) To apply a leech medicinally, so that it sucks blood from the patient.
   • 2003, George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords:

     The poppy made him sleep and while he slept they leeched him to drain off the bad blood.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To drain (resources) without giving back.

   Bert leeched hundreds of files from the BBS, but never uploaded anything in return.

   • 1992, AfricAsia, 2 (1): 12:

     Guinea is also blocking Strasser's efforts to stop illegal fishing in Sierra Leone's territorial waters and the smuggling of gold and diamonds, which leech hundreds of millions of dollars from the country's economy.

• (to drain resources) drain

• German: (download) saugen, (download, colloquial) leechen

From Middle English leche, from Old English lǣċe, from Proto-West Germanic *lākī, from Proto-Germanic *lēkijaz, of disputed origin, but usually thought to be connected with Proto-Celtic - (compare Old Irish líaig) and Serbo-Croatian ljèkār, Polish lekarz; perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-.

Cognate with ofs lētza, osx lāki, Old High German lāhhi, Danish læge, Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍃.

leech (plural leeches)

1. (archaic) A physician.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:

     Many skillful leeches him abide to salve his hurts.

   • 1610, Bolton, Armoriesː ↗

     The word Physitian we do vulgarly abuse (as we doe very many other(s)) for a Leech , or Medicus.

   • 1610, Bolton, Armories ↗ː

     As if an expert leech must needs be expert in the physicks (that is, in those speculations which concerne the workes of nature) the nearest word to fall with our tongue, yet not farre from the thing, was physitian.

   • 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC ↗; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC ↗, page 2 ↗:

     Thus virtuous Orsin was endued / With learning, conduct, fortitude / Incomparable; and as the prince / Of poets, Homer, sung long since, / A skilful leech is better far, / Than half a hundred men of war [...]

   • 1807, George Crabbeː, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     Can this proud leech, with all his boasted skill, / Amend the soul or body, wit or will?

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC ↗, page 146 ↗:

     For the sake of the minister’s health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the seashore or in the forest; mingling various talk with the plash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind anthem among in treetops.

2. (Germanic paganism) A healer.
   • 1900, Augustus Henry Keane, Man, Past and Present, Cambridge: The University Press:

     Their functions are threefold, those of the medicine-man (the leech, or healer by supernatural means); of the soothsayer (the prophet through communion with the invisible world); and of the priest, especially in his capacity as exorcist

   • 1996, Swain Wodening, “Scandinavian Craft Lesson 6: Runic Divination”, Theod Magazine 3 (4)

     In ancient times runesters were a specialized class separate from that of the witch or ordinary spell caster (much as the other specialists such as the leech or healer and the seithkona were different from a witch), and even today many believe it takes years of training to become adept at using the runes in spell work.

• (physician) barber, doctor, physician
• (healer in Heathenry) healer

• German: Heiler

From Middle English lechen, from Middle English leche.

leech (leeches, present participle leeching; simple past and past participle leeched)

1. (archaic, rare) To treat, cure or heal.
   • 1564, Accounts of Louth Corporalː

     Paid for leeching.. my horses very sick.

   • 1566–74, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotlandː

     To one man (that) broke his leg in Strivelin … Item to the man that leecheth him.

   • 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC ↗:

     though there are many Pretenders to the Art of Farriering and Cow-leeching, yet many of them are very ignorant , especially in the Countrie

   • 1850, Blackieː

     A disease that none may leech.

• (make better) treat, cure, heal

From Middle English lek, leche, lyche, from Old Norse lík, from Proto-West Germanic *līk, from Proto-Germanic *līką (compare Western Frisian lyk, Dutch lijk, Middle High German geleich), from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵ- ‘to bind’ (compare Latin ligō, Ukrainian нали́гати, Albanian lidh, Hittite link- (caus.

leech (plural leeches)

1. (nautical) The vertical edge of a square sail.
   • 1984, Sven Donaldson, A Sailor's Guide to Sails, page 130:

     To help combat these problems, almost all sailmakers trim the leeches of their headsails to a hollow or concave profile and enclose a LEECHLINE within the leech tabling.

2. (nautical) The aft edge of a triangular sail.
   • 2004, Gary Jobson, Gary Jobson's Championship Sailing, page 176:

     Trim the leech of the jib parallel to the main by watching the slot between the mainsail and the jib.

• Russian: лик

• Italian: balumina

• As an English surname, variant of Leach.
• As an Irish - surname, from Ó maol mhaodhóg; see Logue.

1. Surname, derived from the profession leech, a former word for a physician.