leech
/ˈliːt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.17 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A typically aquatic blood-sucking annelid of the subclass Hirudinea, especially Hirudo medicinalis.
noun
A healer.
Example Sentences
- "The leech on his leg had swelled to more than five inches long, puffed and swollen on his blood."
- "'Wrecked his body and his mind, no use to hisself or his family or nobody, just a leech on society'."
- "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."
- "This had to be leeched, and lanced, and doctored with ointments and poultices for several weeks, till I was almost driven to despair, - for the weather was at length fine, and I was tantalized by seeing grand butterflies flying past my door, and thinking of the twenty or thirty new species of insects that I ought to be getting every day."
- "The poppy made him sleep and while he slept they leeched him to drain off the bad blood."
- "Near-synonyms: mooch, suck down"
Etymology
From Middle English leche (“blood-sucking worm”), from Old English lǣċe (“blood-sucking worm”), akin to Middle Dutch lāke ("blood-sucking worm"; > modern Dutch laak).