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noun
Leech  n.  
1.
A physician or surgeon; a professor of the art of healing. (Written also leach) (Archaic) "Leech, heal thyself."
2.
(Zool.) 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 (Haemopis vorax), commonly attacking the membrane that lines the inside of the mouth and nostrils of animals that drink at pools where it lives.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Leech" Quotes from Famous Books



... Journal." The book consists of 240 pages and some 45 full-page Illustrations of the most curious varieties of these interesting Caricatures. This New Work will be of interest, not only to Stamp Collectors, but also to those interested in Engravings—especially in the works of LEECH, MULREADY, CRUIKSHANK, DOYLE, PHIZ (H. K. BROWNE), THEO. HOOK, etc. etc. The Work has been produced in a very superior manner, and is printed on special paper with extra large margins; and by the kind permission of the Board of Inland Revenue an Illustration ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell

... will at once stop the haemorrhage till the vessel can be secured. This sounds easy enough, and has been done several times with success. Thus, John Bell, by an incision two feet long, as he tells us in his hyperbolical language, was enabled to tie the vessel in the case of the leech-gatherer who had punctured the artery by a pair of long scissors. Carmichael of Dublin used a smaller incision, removed one or two pounds of clots, and tied the vessel, in a case of ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... away! let the leech essay To pour the light on Allan's eyes:" His sand is done,—his race is run; Oh! ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... conviction; and that his "Religio Laici" no more inferred a belief in the doctrines of Christianity, than the sacrifice of a cock to Esculapius proved the heathen philosopher's faith in the existence of that divine leech. Thus far Dryden had certainly proceeded. His disposition to believe in Christianity was obvious, but he was bewildered in the maze of doubt in which he was involved; and it was already plain, that the Church, whose promises to illuminate him were most confident, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... The mighty duke yet never changed cheer, But grieved to see his friends lamenting stand; The leech prepared his cloths and cleansing gear, And with a belt his gown about him band, Now with his herbs the steely head to tear Out of the flesh he proved, now with his hand, Now with his hand, now with his instrument He shaked and plucked it, yet not ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... conventional traps of a civilized biped who lives upon a blending of wit, woodcraft and industry. We greatly wished to see this hermit, whose nearest neighbors are thirty miles away. His dog welcomed us with all the passion of canine hunger and days of isolation, but the master was gone to Leech Lake, as we afterward found from his Cass Lake neighbors. The wind favored a sail across the lake—a welcome variation from our hitherto entirely muscular propulsion—so we rigged our spars and canvas, drifted smoothly out into the trough of the lively but not angry waves, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... give him up when I did, you are very much mistaken. But that wouldn't interest you, so I'll say no more about it. We'll come down to the present, if you don't mind, and see where we stand; George needs me now, but no more than he has needed me all along. I intend to stick to him like a leech from this time on, Mrs. Tresslyn. You had your chance to make your kind of a man out of him, and I guess you'll admit that you failed. Well, I'm going to begin where you were content to leave off. You treated me like a dog, and God knows you've ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... relieved to find that there would be no irksome delay attending his official discharge. When he walked out a "free man," as he called it, a gentlemanly pension attorney locked arms with him, and hung on like a leech, until the irritated soldier shook him off ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... The Colonel laughed. 'That comes of looking at one of Mahbub's horses. He's a regular old leech, Padre. Wait, then, if thou hast so much time to spare, Mahbub. Now I'm at your service, Padre. Where is the boy? Oh, he's gone off to collogue with Mahbub. Queer sort of boy. Might I ask you to send my ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... company of fools he makes wonderment for: having once the misfortune to relish their society, and to need but too pressingly their 'tobacco-money,' what can he do but suit himself to their capacities?—And D. Jerrold was very amusing and clever in his 'Country Gull'—And Mr. Leech superb in the Town Master Mathew. All were good, indeed, and were voted good, and called on, and cheered off, and praised heartily behind their backs and before the curtain. Stanfield's function had exercise solely in the touching up (very effectively) sundry 'Scenes'—painted ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... his tea and departed to the surgery, catching sight of the coat-tails of Mr. Bitterworth's servant leaving it. Master Cheese was seated with the leech basin before him. It was filled with Orleans plums, of which he was eating with uncommon satisfaction. Liking variations of flavour in fruit, he occasionally diversified the plums with a sour codlin apple, a dozen or so of which he had stowed away in his trousers' pockets. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Illustrated Edition, in 2 vols., with all the Illustrations by Cruikshank and Leech, 15s., or in one ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... this same man. Again, some information: there are five portages above Aitkin, as follows: first, into the western gulf of Lake Cass, saving six miles; second, Little Winnipeg Lake into a stream leading to the Ball Club Lake (missing the great tributary Leech Lake River); third, at White Oak Point, below the Eagle's Nest Savannah; fourth, Pokegama Falls, a carry of two hundred yards on the left bank (a necessity); and fifth, a cut-off above Swan River, saving six miles. This last was the only portage (except the falls) made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... us teach That a blood-sucking red-coat's as good as a leech To relieve the head, if applied to the breech, ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... discordant above all others is the voice of mirth: the fittest spell is that borrowed from melancholy itself, for dark thoughts can be softened down when they cannot be brightened; and so they lose the precise and rigid outline of their truth, and their colors melt into the ideal. As the leech applies in remedy to the internal sore some outward irritation, which, by a gentler wound, draws away the venom of that which is more deadly, thus, in the rankling festers of the mind, our art is to divert to a milder sadness ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... shrieked to have it done. This he did. Then, casting the yard-arm gaskets off from the tye and laying them across between the tye and the mast, I stretched out on the weather yard-arm and, getting hold of the weather leech, brought it in to the slings taut along the yard. Mind you, all this time I, only a boy, was working in a gale of wind and driven rain, and was clinging to a yard that was sweeping from side to side in ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... with great show, a little branch down in New Brunswick; supposing you went there and found that the bank had practically no business because it wouldn't oblige the community, and you started to lend money on good security, believing that a bank should be an asset to, not a leech on, the country. Supposing you suddenly had the branch taken away from you, because you tried to make it, and were making it, a benefit to the community—and were sent back to a sweat-shop on reduced pay: then supposing a bright young fellow came into ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... entitled "The Sleeping Bard," a translation from the Welsh of Elis Wyn. During the years 1862-3 various translations of his appeared in Once a Week, a magazine that then numbered amongst its contributors such writers as Harriet Martineau and S. Baring-Gould, and artists as Leech, Keene, Tenniel, Millais and Du Maurier. Amongst these translations were "The Hailstorm, or the Death of Bui," from the ancient Norse; "The Count of Vendal's Daughter," from the ancient Danish; "Harald Harfagr," from the Norse; "Emelian the Fool," and "The Story of Yashka ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... generally accessible, it is as well to quote the passage intact. It has reference to the Guild of Literature and Art, for the promotion of which Dickens, Lord Lytton, John Forster, Mark Lemon, John Leech, and others, gave so much valuable time and energy, in addition to liberal pecuniary support. The ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... muscle with a piece of silver, and strong contractions take place the instant these metals are brought into contact. The same effect may be produced by placing a piece of silver on a larger piece of zinc, and putting a worm or a leech on the silver; in moving about, the instant it touches the zinc it is thrown ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... to the fact that my eldest brother, with whom I had much in common, was a doctor—had been to adopt the medical profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital lecture-room with pictorial jeux d'esprit of a livelier cast than those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... at ease] Upon this several attendants came, and they took Sir Launcelot and led him to a pleasant chamber. There they unarmed him and gave him a bath in tepid water, and there came a leech and searched his wounds and dressed them. Then those in attendance upon him gave him a soft robe of cloth of velvet, and when Sir Launcelot had put it on he felt much at ease, and in great comfort ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... The Metacomet went to Pensacola that night under a flag of truce with the wounded from the fleet and the Tennessee, and was taken out by the pilot of the latter. He asked Captain Jouett who commanded the monitor that got under the ram's stern, adding: "D——n him! he stuck to us like a leech; we could not get away from him. It was he who cut away the steering gear, jammed the stern port shutters, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut." "Hang him up," roared the King in a gale— In a ten-knot gale of royal rage; The other leech grew ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... with expressions of regret, that Damian gave himself too little rest, considering his early youth, slept too little, and indulged in too restless a disposition—that his health was suffering—and that a learned Jewish leech, whose opinion had been taken, had given his advice that the warmth of a more genial climate was necessary to restore his constitution to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... was forced to receive him; and again he ravages and destroys that devoted country, till the time of which I have been just speaking, when he was driven out of it finally by the rebellion, and, as you may imagine, departed like a leech full ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... practitioners employed to "cure" individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of the profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of devoted men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as a whole, broadening out from the frowsy den of the "leech," with its crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing and economic life of ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... himself matter of the art of swift writing, and would persuade the world that what he writes is extempore wit, currente calamo. But I doubt not to shew that tho' he would be thought to imitate the silk worm that spins its webb from its own bowels, yet I shall make him appear like the leech that lives upon the blood of men, drawn from the gums, and when he is rubbed with salt, spues it up again. To prove this, I shall only give an account of his plays, and by that little of my own knowledge, that I shall discover, it will be ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... ourselves with the enemies of England. We have maintained order, and taken care of English interests in Ireland, besides looking after our own personal affairs. We have not stood everlastingly hat in hand, crying, like the daughter of the horse-leech, Give, give. And great is our reward. We are to be handed over to a pack of Papist traitors and robbers, who for years have made the country a perfect Hell. Mr. Gladstone would fain give rich, industrious Ulster into the hands of lazy, improvident Connaught. Let ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... than under a leech ashore. All that can be done, has been. There are men aboard able to treat any ordinary wound. His was a clean knife thrust, which has been washed, treated with lotion, and bound up. No leech could ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... just plain heresy—he had spoken disrespectfully of the gods and through his teaching he had defiled the youth of Athens. Ample warning had been given to him, and opportunity to run away was provided, but he stuck like a leech, asking the cost of banquets and making ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... let the leech assay To pour the light on Allan's eyes: His sand is done—his race is run; O! never more ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... the horse-leech shall cease to be the painful language of the heart, it will be when, the longings of the heart no longer baffled by the vacancies or the irritating rivalries of a vapid and jealous society, all human beings developed enough to ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... "crack" with which the article exploded, and from which it took its name, was then its principal, and, in some cases, its only feature; and the exclamation, "I know I shall scream," which John Leech, in one of his sketches, puts into the mouth of two pretty girls engaged in cracker-pulling, indicated about the all of delight which that occupation afforded. Since then, however, the cracker has undergone a gradual development. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... of temper. No matter how pure the motive, a man cannot devote his days to squeezing out pecuniary profits without some moral detriment. Formerly this woman, Mrs. Wick, with her gimlet eyes, and her leech lips, with her spyings and eavesdroppings, with her sour civility, her stinted discharge of obligations, her pilferings and mendacities, would have rather amused than annoyed him. "Poor creature, isn't it a miserable as well ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye, in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... were prepared, And patron-saints were lauded; And noble deeds were bravely dared, And noble dames applauded; And Beauty played the leech's part, And wounds were healed with syrup; And warriors sometimes lost a heart, But never lost ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... right well in leech's craft was seen; And through the long experience of his days, Which had in many fortunes tossed been, And passed through many perilous assays: He knew the divers want of mortal ways, And in the minds of men had great insight; Which ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... too serious a case to be quacked. Coma with stertor, and a full, bounding pulse, indicates liberal bloodletting. I would try venesection; then cup, if necessary, or leech the temple. I need not say, sir, calomel must complete the cure. The case is simple, and, at present, surgical: I leave it in competent hands." And he retired, leaving the inferior practitioner ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... few sketches into obscure illustrated papers, and thought his fortune was made. The first was a little sketch in the manner of John Leech, which he took to the British Lion, just started as a rival to Punch. The British Lion died before the sketch appeared, but he got a guinea for it, and bought a beautiful volume of Tennyson, illustrated by Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and others, and made a sketch on the fly-leaf of a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... in deir hands— 'Twill cure too all Statesmen of dulness, ma tear, Tho' the case vas as desperate as poor Mister VAN'S. Dere is noting at all vat dis Pill vill not reach— Give the Sinecure Ghentleman van little grain, Pless ma heart, it vill act, like de salt on de leech, And he'll throw de pounds, shillings, and pence, up again! Vill nobodies try my nice ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage —a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception .. might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... some time been reckoned a crack ship of her class in the British navy, and her crew was in admirable training. From her quarter-deck and forecastle groups of officers and seamen were watching the on-coming of the American frigate. One of the powder monkeys, named Samuel Leech, of the British ship, told graphically and simply the story of that day's ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal, fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance—his, to claim by right of the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... le Colonel had not been fasting, the shock must have killed him," pronounced the leech. "He was over-tired, and that saved him," and with a few directions as to the patient's treatment, he went to prepare a composing draught himself. M. de Sucy was better the next morning, but the doctor had insisted on sitting up ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... side of her white foam marked the hissing, hungry sea. But, with the sail surging before us in its gear like a mad balloon, who noted aught but the sail? I leant out upon my taut bulge of living canvas, beat it with the flat of my hand, and being the youngest waited for the word to "leech" it or "skin" it up. Being tall I was not at the extremity of the yard arm; my fellow fore-topman and a little squat man from the lower Thames stood outside me. My mate and the man inside were my world. The others I saw and heard not. The word came along the yard from the bunt ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... will hae lost the best pen-feather o' his wing before to-morrow morning.—Farewell, Elshie; there's some canny boys waiting for me down amang the shaws, owerby; I will see you as I come back, and bring ye a blithe tale in return for your leech-craft." ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... help smiling. If Lorenzo de' Medici, conscious of millions of ducats in his coffers, had been addressing some leech of the period, he could not have spoken with a loftier air than this inhabitant of the fourth story of a tenement ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... of those unused—probably found unsuitable, there were five by Buss, including a proposed title-page, and two of the Fat Boy "awake on this occasion only." There were also five by Phiz, which were not engraved, and one by Leech. The drawing of the dying clown, Seymour was engaged upon when he committed suicide. Of Buss' there were two of Mr. Pickwick at the Review, two of the cricket match, two of the Fat Boy "awake," "the influence of the salmon"—unused, "Mr. Winkle's first shot"—unused, ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and your new machine-moulded pinions like—a—like a leech on a lily stem! There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is about as ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... will use the olive with my sword: Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech. ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... a right to your own opinion, my lad," said Shaddy quietly, "but I suppose you believe that if you dabbled your legs in the water a leech might fix on you ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... From the German Feldscherer, a sort of combination of leech, first-aid, and barber, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... could eat, and that was Topper's feelings with regard to rats. Edwards did not enjoy the spectacle quite as much as he felt that he ought. Besides, he was engaged in desperate efforts to light his cigar. Match after match did he burn, sucking away all the time like a leech, but no smoke ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... who were tearing out his country's heart. It is little wonder indeed that Montezuma rent the bandages from his wounds and would not suffer them to tend his hurts. For the real hurt was in his soul; there the iron had entered deeply, and no leech could cure it except one called Death. And yet the fault was not all his, the devils whom he worshipped as gods were revenged upon him, for they had filled him with the superstitions of their wicked faith, and ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with her black cat, which had followed her all round the cave, by her side. Then she began to knit and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a huge leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched, and his tail like a piece of cable, looking up at the snake; and the old woman sat and knitted and muttered. Seven days and seven nights they remained thus; when suddenly the serpent dropped from the roof as if exhausted, ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... day she fell, her arm she brak, A compound fracture as could be; Nae leech the cure wad undertak, Whate'er was the gratuity. It 's cured! she handles 't like a flail, It does as weel in bits as hale; But I 'm a broken man mysel' Wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... a dungeon; for the day Through lofty gratings found its way, And rude and antique garniture 290 Decked the sad walls and oaken floor; Such as the rugged days of old Deemed fit for captive noble's hold. "Here," said De Brent, "thou mayst remain Till the Leech visit him again. 295 Strict is his charge, the warders tell, To tend the noble prisoner well." Retiring then the bolt he drew, And the lock's murmurings growled anew. Roused at the sound, from lowly bed 300 A captive feebly raised his head; The wondering Minstrel ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... me like a leech since yesterday morning," complained the old gentleman, "excepting for the short time when she went to church. I don't seem to be able to get rid of her. Wish you would take her away with you and get me some salmon that doesn't come in cans. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... are crowing a merry midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons of the "Wife of Usher's Well." Dogs delight to bark in the country more than in town. Leech's picture of the unfortunate victim who left London to avoid noise, and found that the country was haunted by Cochin-China cocks, illustrates the still repose of the rural life. Nervous people, on the whole, are in a ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... Coristine, as with knapsack readjusted, he took his companion by the arm and resumed the journey; "Hurroo again, I say, it's into the very heart of nature we're getting now. Bless the mosquito and the leech for opening the well ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... leech, Not him who stanched my husband, but another We have no time: send for a leech, I say: There is an antidote against each poison, And he will sell it if we give him money. Tell him that I will give him Padua, For one short hour of life: I will not die. ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... south,—the scent of whose dusky chalice is the fume of bitterness; the taste of whose dark fruit is death. And because the children and the maidens shun my poisonous berries, when they go out into the woods to make garlands for Mary's shrine, or for wedding gala; and because the leech and herbalist find in me a marvellous balm to soothe the torments of physical anguish; because I give the sick man ease, and the sleepless man oblivion, and the miserable man eternal rest; because I am sombre of hue and unsweet ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... before the fight began. This hand a field-leech bandaged up for me Scarce merits that you call ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the comedy of literature. Therefore we must take something of the vulgarity of Jerrold as a circumstance of the social ranks wherein he delighted. But the essential vulgarity is that of the woman. There is in some old "Punch" volume a drawing by Leech—whom one is weary of hearing named the gentle, the refined—where the work of the artist has vied with the spirit of the letterpress. Douglas Jerrold treats of the woman's jealousy, Leech of her stays. They lie on a chair by the bed, beyond description gross. And page by page the woman is derided, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... method. I once saw ten or twelve leeches adhere to each foot of an old horse a little above his hoofs, who was grazing in a morass, and which did not lose their hold when he moved about. The bare-legged travellers in Ceylon are said to be much infested by leeches; and the sea-leech, hirudo muricata, is said to adhere to fish, and the remora is said to adhere to ships in such numbers as to retard ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... demeanour kind, But stately in the main; and, when he ended, I could have laugh'd myself to scorn, to find In that decrepit Man so firm a mind. "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth

... still, after a whole day, rankles and festers there. I have been on my knees with it again and again; I have stood and looked into an open grave to-day; but there it is sucking at my heart's blood still, like a leech of hell. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Create in me a clean heart, O God, O wretched man that I am! "Let a man," says William Law when he is enforcing humility, "but consider that ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... Anne Leech said 'that her imps did usually suck those teats which were found about the privie parts of her body. [Two women searched Mary Greenleife], and found that the said Mary had bigges or teates in her secret parts, not like emerods, nor in those places where women ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... said he was come of the Finns, and his ill-wishers would have it that his birthplace had been behind a foss, and that he had the blood of dwarves in him. Yet though he made sport for the company, he had respect from them, for he was wise in many things, a skilled leech, a maker of runes, and a crafty builder of ships. He was a master hand at riddles, and for hours the housecarles would puzzle their wits over his efforts. This was the manner of them. "Who," Leif would ask, "are the merry maids that ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... him, and these fears were realized when upon the morrow Gregory awoke on fire with the fever. They summoned a leech from Sheringham, and this cunning knave, with a view to adding importance to the cure he was come to effect, and which in reality presented no alarming difficulty, shook his head with ominous gravity, and whilst promising ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... a certain song while the iron was heating. I told him that his runic rhymes were no proof against the weapons which fought at Loncarty—what farther came of it it is needless to tell, but the corselet and the wearer, and the leech who salved his wound, know if Henry Gow can break ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... came at last to weeping that no one would hear or understand him; but the scene was ended by Bairdsbrae, who, returning, brought a leech with him, who at once took the command of Patrick, and ordered ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... their crime or their condition. He belonged to a peculiar class,—one that grows larger and larger each year in New York and which has imitators in every large city in this country. It is a set which lives, like the leech, upon the blood of others,—that draws its life from the veins of foolish men and immoral women, that prides itself upon its well-dressed idleness and has no shame in its voluntary pauperism. Each member of the class knows every other, his methods ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... to the castle, some of ye, and bring What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed For the leech to the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... far cry from the The Ingoldsby Legends to The Deeds of the Romans, nevertheless The Leech of Folk-stone was directly taken from the hundred and second tale, Of the Transgressions and Wounds of the Soul. Shakespeare himself was a frequent borrower, and planned his entire play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... Frost wrung her hands in nervous terror. She thought of that awful moment when she had swallowed the wood-lice. She thought of the terrible appearance of James when the wasps had stung him. She remembered another occasion when she had found a leech in her bed. Oh, how terrible Irene had been! And there was Miss Carter, who had nearly lost her life in the boat. Then there was Hughie—something very queer had happened to Hughie on one occasion, only Hughie was no coward. He was brave and practical. But then, again, ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... particular. Jessica in the "still small hours" was never really gay. It was dimly comforting to one of my companionable nature to turn from her to the little old woman opposite me. In figure and dress she might have posed for one of Leech's drawings of ancient dames, so quaintly prim was she, so precise in their folds were her little black mantle and her simple black gown, so effective a frame to her wrinkled face was the wide black bonnet she wore. On her hands, demurely crossed in her lap, were black lace ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... Tour to the Lakes, and, on observing the picture of Key-way-no-wut, or the Going Cloud, Mr. B. observed, 'Ah, that is the fellow I came near having a fight with'; and he detailed at length the circumstances. This Indian was a very desperate character, and of whom, all the Leech Lake band stood in fear. He would shoot down any Indian who offended him, without the least hesitation, and had become quite the bully of that part of the tribe. The trader at Leech Lake warned ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... water, by means of lines from the fore and main yard arms, for the use of those who either cannot swim, or who are not expert in this art, so very important to all seafaring people. Half a dozen of the ship's boys were floundering about in the sails, and sometimes even venturing beyond the leech rope. One of the least of these urchins, but not the least courageous of their number, when taunted by his more skilful companions with being afraid, struck out boldly beyond the prescribed bounds. He had not gone much further than his own length, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... the bough-runes wisdom If leech-lore thou lovest; And wilt wot about wounds' searching On the bark be they scored; On the buds of trees Whose ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... to threaten me, a loyal Englishman, you false priest and foreign traitor," he shouted, "whom all men know to be in the pay of Spain, and using the cover of a monk's dress to plot against the land on which you fatten like a horse-leech? Why was John Foterell murdered in the forest two nights gone? You won't answer? Then I will. Because he rode to Court to prove the truth about you and your treachery, and therefore you butchered him. Why do you claim my wife as your ward? Because you wish to steal her lands ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... A skilful leech, so long as we were whole: Who scann'd the nation's every outward part, But ah! misheard the beating of its heart. Sire of huge sorrows, yet erect of soul. Swift rider with calamity for goal, Who, overtasking his equestrian ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... course, it runs to the top of Sandy Stream Mountain; thence, inclining to the southwest, it runs over Hog Back the First, as shown in the maps; thence toward Hog Back the Second, which it leaves on the north side. Further on, at the head of Leech Lake, there is a stream which divides its waters and flows both into Canada and into the United States. The boundary has been made to run up that stream a short distance from the fork where the waters divide to a second fork; thence between the streams which unite to form ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... all were suffering from wounds more or less severe. The following morning their bonds were unloosed, and their wounds carefully attended to by a leech. Then water and food were offered to them, and of these, following Beric's example, they partook heartily. An hour later they were placed in the centre of a strong guard, and then fell in with the troops who were formed up to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... condition, and plucking every now and then, I have no doubt, the hundredth specimen of some common weed. He stopped opposite a shallow, muddy piece of water, as desolate and gloomy as his own mind, called the Leech-pond, and 'it was while I gazed on it,' he said to my brother and me, one happy morning, 'that I determined to go to London and ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... coin. (There was a free library in Hillsborough, and a mechanic could take out standard books and reviews.) Thus they passed the evening hours agreeably, and usefully too, for Henry sucked in knowledge like a leech, and at the same time carved things that sold well in London. He had a strong inclination to open his heart about Miss Carden. Accordingly, one evening he said, "She lost her mother when she was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... in the Wordsworth household as "The Leech-Gatherer," although it never received that name in print. An entry in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of Friday, 3rd October 1800, may preface what she wrote in 1802 about the composition ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... pursued Robert since his arrival in town, all for Bertha's amusement, and he brought down, by special orders, a musical-box, all Leech's illustrations, and a small Maltese dog, like a spun-glass lion, which Augusta had in vain proposed to him to exchange for her pug, which was getting fat and wheezy, and 'would amuse Bertha just as well.' Lady Bannerman hardly ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his way," said he—"let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honour of his English ancestry with the glaive and brown-bill, the good ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... way," said Cedric; "let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his English ancestry with the [v]glaive and [v]brown-bill, the good old ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... said Nick. "I'm here. I shall stick like a leech for the future. You will never be out of my sight again in ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... here; as I was turning over this bit of flat tile I saw in the water I found a creature something like a leech, and on raising it up I saw what looks like a quantity of the animal's eggs, and she seems to be sitting upon them as a hen upon her eggs." All right, Jack; let me look, I dare say it is one of the snail-leeches. Yes, to be sure it is, and here are the eggs which the creature carefully covers ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... somehow, and Bourne always covered his exertions, so that it seemed as if there would be a draw after all. At last the ball was swung across, and Aspinall was off on a final venture. Acton stuck to him like a leech, but the winger tipped the ball to his partner, and as Acton moved to intercept the inside, the latter quickly and wisely poked the ball back again to Aspinall. He was off again in his own inimitable style, and I saw him smile ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... No marks of violence appeared upon the body; but the livid hue of the lips, and certain dark-colored spots visible on the skin, aroused suspicions which those who entertained them were too timid to express. Apoplexy, induced by the excesses of the preceding night, Sir Giles's confidential leech pronounced to be the cause of his sudden dissolution. The body was buried in peace; and though some shook their heads as they witnessed the haste with which the funeral rites were hurried on, none ventured to murmur. Other events arose to distract the attention of the retainers; men's minds became ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... forgotten, meanwhile, that prostrate individual. Having examined the wounds in his side, legs, head, and throat, the old hermit (a skilful leech) knelt down by the side of the vanquished one and said, "Sir Knight, it is my painful duty to state to you that you are in an exceedingly dangerous condition, and will not ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to M. Fouquet. What did he repeat to us all the day? Was it not this? 'What a cuistre is that Mazarin! what an ass! what a leech! We must, however, submit to the fellow.' Now, Conrart, did he say so, or did ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals. In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped. "Sheet home the fore royal!—Weather sheet's home!"—"Hoist away, sir!" is bawled from aloft. "Overhaul your clew-lines!" shouts the mate. "Aye, aye, sir, all clear!"—"Taught leech! belay! Well the lee brace; haul taught to windward"—and the royals are set. These brought us up again; but the wind continuing light, the California set hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from us. Our captain ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... exceedingly numerous, and contains a very varied assemblage of forms. This group is the "sub-kingdom" of Worms, VERMES. First amongst its contents may be mentioned the higher or true "worms," such as the earth-worm (Lumbricus), the leech (Hirudo), the sea-mouse (Aphrodite), and their allies, together with the worms which live in tubes, which are called Tubicolous-"Annelids," because the whole class of these higher worms bears the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... to the lady's feet and pulled off the leech and held it up against his hollow palm, gorged with the blood of the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... and she thought of whom was need, The friar or the leech; When lo, stood her tirewoman breathless by: Lord Dusiote, madam, to death is nigh, Of you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of the ponds, most of which we could see from his windows, and making us repeat them after him, to see if we had got them right. They were Gull Pond, (the largest and a very handsome one, clear and deep, and more than a mile in circumference,) Newcomb's, Swett's, Slough, Horse-Leech, Round, and Herring Ponds,—all connected at high-water, if I do not mistake. The coast-surveyors had come to him for their names, and he told them of one which they had not detected. He said that they were not so high as formerly. There was an earthquake about four years ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... protect the wearer from charms exercised by others. The "Leech Book" gives us one to be worn and another to be taken internally for this purpose. To be used "against every evil rune lay, and one full of elvish tricks, writ for the bewitched man, this writing in Greek letters: Alfa, Omega, Iesvm, BERONIKH. Again, another dust ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... painful respirations in spite of all efforts to save him, and the body was buried in the garden. An attempt to generate another, made by the Count without the assistance of the Abbe, who had left, failed; it produced only a small thing like a leech, which had little ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... and I do not wonder; but for your own sake, in order to keep your mind clear and strong for your vindication, you certainly ought to take care of your health. Starvation is the surest leech for depleting soul and body. Do you want to die here in prison, leaving your name tarnished, and smirched with suspicion of crime, when you can live to proclaim your innocence to the world? Remember that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... avoiding the landslip, and reached the waterfall in a little over the hour. Pausing here for a few minutes to rest, and quench our thirst, we resumed our journey, and reached the bungalow at midday none the worse, with the exception of leech-bites and cut feet, for the climb. Remarking to H. on the extraordinary number of snakes I had noticed on the way up, he informed me that Matang is famed for them, and that, on rising one morning at the bungalow we were then in, he discovered a cobra eight ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... Gottlob at last, as, after some moments, a slight convulsive movement passed over the frame of the poor woman. "Aid me, my friends. She still lives. Help me to transport her to some house." But the crowd drew back in horror. "I will convey her to my own chamber close by. Send for a leech! Are ye without pity?" he continued, as, instead of assisting him, the crowd held back, and answered his entreaties only with exclamations of disgust and scorn. "Are ye Christian men, that ye would see the poor woman die before your eyes for want ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... Let him be instantly secured. When summoned, I will not fail to confront, to denounce the wretch. He cannot penetrate yonder walls save by fraud or stratagem. How I have escaped death is one of the mysteries which time perchance may never develop. One might fancy the cunning leech who supplied the drug did play me false. Instead of poison, mayhap, one of those potions of which we have heard, that so benumb and stupify the faculties that for a space they mimic death, nor can anything rouse or recover from its influence until ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... themselves to the skin of the legs and adjacent parts of the horse, and the Haemopis Sanguisuga, and others of this class, which, not being able to penetrate the skin, endeavor to enter the mouth or nostrils of the horse when he is drinking or grazing in wet and leech-infected pastures. They sometimes cling to the mucous membrane of the eyes. The horse leech, which lives in the water, usually gains access to the mouth and nostrils of the animal, when young and not more than one-tenth of an inch long. ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... LEECH, a hundred years ago, When you were born and after, There shone a sort of kindly glow Of airy fun and laughter; It was a sound that seemed to sing, A universal humming That made the echoing rafters ring And so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... named, as I think, in the Travels of Sir John Maundeville. This city of Damascus is very great, and there be about the same so fair gardens as I never did see at any other place; moreover, Saint Paul here dwelt, and was a leech. [See Note 2.] Also I give you to wit, good lady, that I look by our Lord's help, to go on to the holy city of Jerusalem, the which is from here five days' journey. And I send you herein a fine piece of baudekyn, ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... was not angry, but familiar. It is true that the poor child had first been burlesqued by the unchildish aspect imposed upon him by his dress, which presented him, without the beauties of art or nature, to all the unnatural ironies. Leech did but finish him in the same spirit, with dots for the childish eyes, and a certain form of face which is best described as a fat square containing two circles—the inordinate cheeks of that ignominious baby. That is the child ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... other women—"the old beldam" Anne West, who had "been suspected as a witch many yeers since, and suffered imprisonment for the same,"[12] her daughter Rebecca,[13] Anne Leech, her daughter Helen Clarke, and Elizabeth Gooding—were arrested. As in the case of the first, there was soon abundance of evidence offered about them. One Richard Edwards bethought himself and remembered that while crossing a bridge he had heard a cry, "much like the shrieke of ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... of these, however, has been detected and pointed out; but the best passages in the book, indeed whatever was calculated to make the book valuable, have been assailed with abuse and misrepresentation. The duty of the true critic is to play the part of a leech, and not of a viper. Upon true and upon malignant criticism there is an excellent fable by the Spaniard Iriarte. The viper says to the leech, "Why do people invite your bite, and flee from mine?" "Because," says the leech, "people receive health from ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... gentleman, motioned him to a seat between us, and then uncovering my limb, desired him to examine it. The leech gazed intently from me to Toby, and then proceeded to business. After diligently observing the ailing member, he commenced manipulating it; and on the supposition probably that the complaint had deprived the leg of all sensation, began to pinch and ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... you. You haven't earned a dollar in four years. I have it from her, and from others. It is commonly understood that you won't work, you won't do a stroke toward supporting the child. You are a leech, a barnacle, a—a—well, a loafer. If you had a drop of real man's blood in you, you'd get out and earn enough to buy clothes for yourself, at least, and the money for a hair cut or a shoe shine. She has been too good to you, my little man. You can't blame her for getting tired of ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... voice is still. The glow-worms, numerous and bright, Illum'd the dewy dell last night. At dusk the squalid toad was seen, Hopping, and crawling o'er the green. The frog has lost his yellow vest, And in a dingy suit is dressed. The leech, disturb'd, is newly risen, Quite to the summit of his prison. The whirling winds the dust obeys, And in the rapid eddy plays; My dog, so alter'd in his taste, Quits mutton-bones on grass to feast; And see yon rooks, how odd their ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... the extraordinary abundance of these annulates in Sikkin, Hooker (Himalayan Journal, i, 167) ascribes the death of many animals, as also the murrain known as rinderpest, if it occurred after a very wet season, when the leech appears in incredible numbers. It is a known fact that these worms have existed for days together in the nostrils, throat, and stomach of man, causing inexpressible pain and, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... Drummy, say they, was a tender diminutive of drum, as the best authors in their more familiar writings now begin to use gunny for gun. But Hardius, a contemporary critic, contends, with more probability, that it ought to be written Drome, from hippodrome; a learned leech and elegant bard of Bath having left it on record that this lady spent much of her time at the riding-school, being a very exquisite judge of horsemanship. Colmanus and Horatius Strawberryensis insist that it ought to be written Dromo, in reference to the Dromo ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... the window and jumped into the room. At the same moment Deborah, putting her sturdy shoulder to the frail door, burst it open. Beecot flung himself on the woman and dragged her back. But she clung like a leech to Sylvia with the black handkerchief in her grip. Deborah, silent and fierce, grabbed at the handkerchief, and tore it from Maud's grasp. Sylvia, half-strangled, fell back in a faint, white as a corpse, while Paul struggled with ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... found in 1860 by Mr. T. Leech, at the foot of the cliff between Herne Bay and the Reculvers, and on further search five other specimens of the spear-head pattern so common at Amiens. Messrs. Prestwich and Evans have since found three other similar tools on the beach, at the base of the same ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... you to rest, fair sir," said Aylward anxiously. "The King's own leech saw you this morning, and he said that if the bandage was torn from your ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of hunters and fowlers. Mr. Crooke [32] writes of them: "All their traditions connect them with the Pasis and Parasurama, the sixth Avatara of Vishnu. One story runs that Parasurama was bathing in the sea, when a leech bit his foot and caused it to bleed. He divided the blood into two parts; out of one part he made the first Pasi and out of the second the first Arakh. Another story is that the Pasis were made out of the sweat (pasina) of Parasurama. While ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... weather leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various



Words linked to "Leech" :   sponge, annelid worm, horseleech, hirudinean, bleed, sponger, leech onto, annelid, class Hirudinea, medicine, bloodsucker, medicinal leech, Hirudo medicinalis, parasite, phlebotomise, care for, follower, segmented worm



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