leach
/liːt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.25 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Alternative spelling of leech.
Example Sentences
- ""This is the leach," said Kitty, pointing to a large, yellowish, upright wooden cylinder, which rested on some slanting boards, down the surface of which ran a brownish liquid that dripped into a trough."
- "Heavy rainfall can leach out minerals important for plant growth from the soil."
- "[T]he very wet winter will have washed much of the goodness out of the soil. Homemade compost and the load of manure we get from a friendly farmer may not be enough to compensate for what has leached from the ground."
- "The gangue was leached to recover minerals left behind by the original technology."
- "A more generic geography, one where the suburb uneasily abuts the commercial and industrial, or leaches out to a nonurban frontier."
- "There's a second half to each video. He remembers now. He watched it passively, over and over, and never saw it. Something comes through. It's been leaching into the background of the world this whole time, in plain sight, and he never saw it, and it's here now—"
Etymology
From Middle English leche (“leachate; sluggish stream”), from Old English *lǣċ, *lǣċe (“muddy stream”), from Proto-Germanic *lēkijō (“a leak, drain, flow”) (compare Proto-Germanic *lekaną (“to leak, drain”)), from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to leak”). Cognate with Old English leċċan (“to water, moisten”), Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond”). More at leak, lake.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /liːt͡ʃ/
- British English: /liːt͡ʃ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.