1. Any of various chiefly aquatic bloodsucking or carnivorous annelid worms of the class Hirudinea, of which one species (Hirudo medicinalis) was formerly used by physicians to bleed patients and is now sometimes used as a temporary aid to circulation during surgical reattachment of a body part. 2. One that preys on or clings to another; a parasite. 3.Archaic A physician.
VERB:
Inflected forms: leeched, leech·ing, leech·es
TRANSITIVE VERB:
1. To bleed with leeches. 2. To drain the essence or exhaust the resources of.
INTRANSITIVE VERB:
To attach oneself to another in the manner of a leech.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English leche, physician, leech, from Old English lce. See leg- in Appendix I.
l
ch
ce. See leg- in Appendix I.
