Leech \Leech\, n. [Cf. LG. leik, Icel. l[=i]k, Sw. lik boltrope, st[*a]ende liken the leeches.] (Naut.) The border or edge at the side of a sail. [Written also {leach}.]
{Leech line}, a line attached to the leech ropes of sails, passing up through blocks on the yards, to haul the leeches by. --Totten.
{Leech rope}, that part of the boltrope to which the side of a sail is sewed.
Leech \Leech\, n. [OE. leche, l[ae]che, physician, AS. l[=ae]ce; akin to Fries. l[=e]tza, OHG. l[=a]hh[=i], Icel. l[ae]knari, Sw. l["a]kare, Dan. l[ae]ge, Goth. l[=e]keis, AS. l[=a]cnian to heal, Sw. l["a]ka, Dan. l[ae]ge, Icel. l[ae]kna, Goth. l[=e]kin[=o]n.] 1. A physician or surgeon; a professor of the art of healing. [Written also {leach}.] [Archaic] --Spenser.
Leech, heal thyself. --Wyclif (Luke iv. 23).
2. (Zo["o]l.) 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 ({H[ae]mopis vorax}), commonly attacking the membrane that lines the inside of the mouth and nostrils of animals that drink at pools where it lives.
Leech \Leech\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Leeched} (l[=e]cht); p. pr. & vb. n. {Leeching}.] 1. To treat as a surgeon; to doctor; as, to leech wounds. [Archaic]
2. To bleed by the use of leeches.
He says people find the leech's obnoxious and repugnant side fascinating.
Credit for bringing the leech out of medicine's dark ages goes to a few French doctors who, in the early 1980s, began employing them in the fast-developing specialty of microsurgery.
Who would want to buy a leech?
His highness had stepped on a leech.
"He's a leech," KTLA-TV anchorwoman Jann Carl said after Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor imposed the maximum penalty on Gilbert Cabot.
But Dr. Freshwater of Miami says that his patients have never turned down a leech.
Since her husband left, her son Brandon often wakes up at night yelling, "Where's Mom?" "These kids hang on to me like a leech," Ms. Sulfridge says.