leech
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: lēch
ipa: /liːt͡ʃ/
homophone: leach
rhymes: -iːtʃ
Forms: form: leeches
Etymology: From Middle English leche (“physician”), from Old English lǣċe (“doctor, physician”), from Proto-West Germanic *lākī, from Proto-Germanic *lēkijaz (“doctor”), of disputed origin, but usually thought to be connected with Proto-Celtic (compare Old Irish líaig (“charmer, exorcist, physician”)); perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect, gather”).
Cognate with Old Frisian lētza (“physician”), Old Saxon lāki (“physician”), Old High German lāhhi (“doctor, healer”), Danish læge (“doctor, surgeon”), Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍃 (lēkeis, “physician”). Slavic words such as Serbo-Croatian ljèkār, Polish lekarz (“physician, doctor”) are usually considered to be borrowings from Germanic.
Senses: examples: text: Many skillful leeches him abide to salve his hurts.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: The word Physitian we do vulgarly abuse (as we doe very many other(s)) for a Leech , or Medicus.
ref: 1610, Armoriesː, Bolton:
text: 1610, Bolton, Armoriesː
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.
text: 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 [...]
ref: 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:
text: Can this proud leech, with all his boasted skill, / Amend the soul or body, wit or will?
ref: 1807, George Crabbeː, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
text: 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.
ref: 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 146:
text: He coughed sputum stained with blood, and a scraping, crackling noise came from his chest, quite audible to anyone in the room. ‘Lungs possibly not too good,’ the leech said.
ref: 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 11:
glosses: A physician.
examples: text: 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
ref: 1900, Augustus Henry Keane, Man, Past and Present, Cambridge: The University Press:
text: 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.
ref: 1996, Swain Wodening, “Scandinavian Craft Lesson 6: Runic Divination”, Theod Magazine 3 (4)
text: "Leech?" "Not another doctor".
ref: 2003, Brian Froud, Ari Berk, The Runes of Elfland, Pavillion Books, →ISBN, page 22:
text: There are many kinds of "Leech" or "healer" as there are healing techniques, some are more powerful than others and some are very specific to certain illnesses and complaints; some use potions and unguents, others crystals and stones, others galdr and some work their healing from within the hidden realms themselves.
ref: 2004, Runic John, The Book of Seidr, Capall Bann Publishing, →ISBN, page 282:
topics: lifestyle
paganism
religion
glosses: A healer.
Synonyms: sense: physician
word: barber
sense: physician
word: doctor
sense: physician
word: physician
sense: healer in Heathenry
word: healer
Derived terms: cowleech
horse-leech
horse leech
leechbook
leechcraft
leechdom
leechery
leech-finger