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Leech   /litʃ/   Listen
Leech

noun
1.
Carnivorous or bloodsucking aquatic or terrestrial worms typically having a sucker at each end.  Synonyms: bloodsucker, hirudinean.
2.
A follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage.  Synonyms: parasite, sponge, sponger.



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"Leech" Quotes from Famous Books



... compared her with Shelley. In her last phase, she reminds us rather of the authors of Far from the Madding Crowd and The Mill on the Floss, and of Wordsworth, once, too, a torch of revolution, turning to his Michaels and his leech-gatherers and his Peter Bells. Her exquisite pictures of pastoral life are idealizations of it; her representations of the peasant are not corroborated by Zola's; to the last she approaches the shield of human nature from the golden side. But for herself at least she has found a real secret of happiness ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... that foul imputation back into thy teeth base knave. Thou thyself art a very daughter of a horse-leech with ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... a Scotch gentleman, whose name was Leitch, and who explained that he was not the popular caricaturist, John Leech. "I'm aware of that; you're the Scotchman with the i-t-c-h in ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... to flight, They quick to fly, he bitter to recite! What hapless soul he seizes, he holds fast; Rants, and repeats, and reads him dead at last: Hangs on him, ne'er to quit, with ceaseless speech. Till gorg'd and full of blood, a very Leech! ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... De Vac. "Is it not enough that you leech me of good marks of such a quantity that you may ever after wear mantles of villosa and feast on simnel bread and malmsey, that you must needs burden me still further with the affliction of thy ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... lying full length on one of the 2-inch planks taken from the bridge wreck. He was paddling himself along with arms and legs hung over the sides of the plank. We all gave him a cheer, and then started out to have some fun with him. We tried to pull him off his raft, but he stuck on like a leech. It was only when we made his craft turn turtle that Dutchy got his head under water. But it wasn't a moment before he scrambled back on top again, gasping and sputtering to get the water out of ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... 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 even if you care nothing for your life, you owe something to your mother. You have two ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Talking about pests, in some parts the ants were even more terrible than the mosquitoes, and I have known one variety—a reddish-brown monster, an inch long—to swarm over and actually kill children by stinging them. Another pest was the leech. It was rather dangerous to bathe in some of the lagoons on account of the leeches that infested the waters. Often in crossing a swamp I would feel a slight tickling sensation about the legs, and on looking ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... ascending current of your senseless hurrahs the programmers are going through your blessed pockets and exploiting your holy dollars? No; you feel secure; "power is of the People," and you can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege—to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap! But then you are not "subjects;" you are "citizens"—there is much in that Your tyrant is not a "King;" he is a "President." ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... a tedious old Mumpsiman that kept himself and her in little ease by plying the trade of a horse-leech, which trade, for the girl's felicity, held him much abroad, and gave her occasion, seldom by her neglected, to prove to her intimate of the hour that there can be fire without smoke. Now I, being somewhat top-heavy at this season with the wine of so fair a lady's favors, thought ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... for 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 ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... Grief. This Venus brings, in Clouds involv'd; and brews Th' extracted Liquor with Ambrosian Dews, And od'rous Panacee: Unseen she stands, Temp'ring the Mixture with her heav'nly Hands: And pours it in a Bowl, already crown'd With Juice of medc'nal Herbs, prepared to bathe the Wound. The Leech, unknowing of superior Art, Which aids the Cure, with this foments the Part; And in a Moment ceas'd the raging Smart. Stanched is the Blood, and in the bottom stands: The Steel, but scarcely touched with tender Hands, Moves ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Sir, either of you, but remember the lesson you've got,' said the doctor, tartly, and away he plunged into a sharp trot, with a cling-clang and a cloud of dust. And Puddock followed that ungracious leech, with a stare of gratitude and admiration, almost with a benediction. And his anxiety relieved, he and his principal prepared forthwith to provide real work for ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... a laugh to raise! Pray don't be so fastidious! She But as a leech, her hocus-pocus plays, That well with you her potion may agree. (He compels FAUST ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... BBS types, crackers and {warez d00dz}, one who consumes knowledge without generating new software, cracks, or techniques. BBS culture specifically defines a leech as someone who downloads files with few or no uploads in return, and who does not contribute to the message section. Cracker culture extends this definition to someone (a {lamer}, usually) who constantly presses informed sources for information ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... original publishers of Pickwick. One of the best of the many editions of Dickens is the Macmillan Pocket edition with reproductions of the original covers of the monthly parts of the novels as they appeared, the original illustrations by Cruikshank, Leech, "Phiz" (Hablot Browne) and others, and valuable and interesting introductions by Charles Dickens the younger. Another good edition is in the World's Classics, with brilliant introductions by G.K. Chesterton. In buying an edition of Dickens it is well ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... Within the consecrated hall.(916) Dried are the udders of our cows, Our elephants have juiceless brows,(917) Nor can the sweetest pasture stay The charger's long unquiet neigh. Big tears from mules and camels flow Whose staring coats their trouble show, Nor can the leech's art restore Their health and vigour as before. Rapacious birds are fierce and bold: Not single hunters as of old, In banded troops they chase the prey, Or gathering on our temples stay. Through twilight hours with shriek and howl Around the city jackals prowl, And wolves and foul hyaenas wait Athirst ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this yarn for youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with faint praise out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She is become the horse-leech's daughter, and my mill doesn't grind fast enough to suit her. This is no mean ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... out the arrow," she said. "She is still insensible; but the leech thinks that it is from loss of blood, and hopes that no vital point has been injured. More than that he cannot say, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... was worn under the collar, and not many of the boys had acquired the art of tying the regular sailor's knot. Boatswain Peaks not only stood up as a model for them, but he adjusted the "neck gear" for many of them. Bitts, the carpenter, and Leech, the sailmaker, who were also old sailors, cheerfully rendered a valet's assistance to such as ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Frederick Locker, Stirling of Keir, Tom Taylor the dramatist, Millais, Leighton, and others of lesser note. Cayley was a member of, and regular attendant at, the Cosmopolitan Club; where he met Dickens, Foster, Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Dicky Doyle, and the wits of the day; many of whom occasionally formed part of our charming coterie in the house ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... mean, so small minded, so sneaking and so utterly selfish"—-how Phin squirmed in his seat!—-"that, in sending the envelopes through the mail he was not even man enough to pay full postage. Four cents was the postage required for each envelope, but this small-souled sneak, this ungenerous leech actually made the receivers pay half of the postage ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... the study of his beloved Greek authors, yet his skill as a physician was held in high repute, and there were many among the heads of colleges who, when illness threatened them, invariably besought the help of Dr. Langton in preference to that of any other leech in the place. Moreover, there were many poor scholars and students, as well as indigent townsfolk, who had good cause to bless his name; whilst the faces of his two beautiful daughters were well known in many a crowded lane and alley of the city, and they often went by the sobriquet of ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... 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, there ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... 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

... roused me at last from my stupor, making me understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon, the result of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for whom he had despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose, and taking my place, presently restored her to consciousness. But her extreme feebleness warned me not to hope for more than a temporary recovery; nor had I sat by her long before I discerned that this last blow, following on so ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as men seek health or fortune with ...
— California and the Californians • David Starr Jordan

... 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 its ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... a cheek like a peach, like a peach, That is waiting for you in the church;— But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, And you leave your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... and like a bear that has burst through the gates closing his den, this unmerciful rehearser chases the learned and unlearned. And whomsoever he seizes, he fastens on and assassinates with recitation: a leech that will not quit the skin, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... leech (so God him speed) They said had wrought this blessed deed, This leech Arbuthnot was yclept, Who many a night not once had slept; But watch'd our gracious Sov'reign still: For who could rest when she was ill? O may'st thou henceforth sweetly sleep! Shear, ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... the strong arms of Malise and stood erect to listen for any renewal of the attack. The wise smith, whose skill as a leech was proverbial, carefully felt James Douglas all over in the darkness, and took advantage of every flicker of summer lightning to examine him as well ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... 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 ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

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

... M. d'Anquetil, "that for a leech and a village squirt your test is not a bad one. Nothing is worse than those little but deep wounds which look a mere nothing. Tell me of a nice cut across the face. It's pleasant to look on, and heals in no time. But know, my good sir, that this wounded man is my chaplain, and plays piquet ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... men hanged; the pillory and the stocks were no empty "terrors unto evil-doers," for there was commonly a malefactor occupying each of these institutions. With all this we had a broad-blown comic sense. We had Hogarth, and Bunbury, and George Cruikshank, and Gilray; we had Leech and Surtees, and the creator of Tittlebat Titmouse; we had the Shepherd of the "Noctes," and, above ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... And I must hang to it like a leech," admitted the other, trying to smile, but making ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... Queen-Hoo Hall and closely guarded; meanwhile he anxiously inquired of young St. Clere about his wound. "A scratch, a trifle!" cried Henry; "I am in less haste to bind it than to introduce to you one without whose aid that of the leech would have come too late. Where is he? Where is my ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... sweeter still The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May. Prince, we have ridd'n before among the flowers In those fair days—not all as cool as these, Tho' season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick? Our noble King will send thee his own leech - Sick? or for any ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... result of his new enterprise, and all else was obscured by the brightness of a vortex toward which he was moving in swiftly-closing circles. Already two-thirds of his handsome fortune was embarked in this new scheme, that was still growing in magnitude, and still, like the horse-leech, crying "Give! give!" All that now remained was "Woodbine Lodge," valued at over twenty-five thousand dollars. This property he determined to leave untouched. But new calls for funds were constantly being made by Mr. Fenwick, backed by the most flattering ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... three-year old male. No sooner was the struggling animal deposited in the bottom of my own boat than it savagely seized the calf of my devoted leg and endeavored to bite therefrom a generous cross section. My leggings and my leech stockings saved my life. That implacable little beast never gave up; and two days later ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... the children of the back slums be the Italian organ-grinder, let him remain there; but don't let him emerge thence to worry and drive to distraction authors, composers, musicians, artists, and invalids. It was mainly the organ-grinding nuisance that killed JOHN LEECH. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... resemble small leeches; some, bearing a series of points ranged on a common base, like masts on the hull of a vessel, the tallest in the centre, belong to the genus Hybodus. There is a palpable approximation in the teeth of the leech-like form to the teeth with the numerous points. Some of the specimens show the same plicated structure common to both; and on some of the leech backs, if I may so speak, there are protuberant knobs, that indicate the places of the spiky points on the hybodent teeth. I have got three of each ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... returned to the mainland, where so great was the joy over his return that he was appointed heir to Cornwall and successor to Mark the Good. But his wound, having been inflicted by a poisoned blade, grew more grievous day by day. No leech might cure it, and the evil odour arising from the gangrene drove every one from his presence ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... that had ever been doubted. Well, then, when you have got your man into the net, you must take great care to land him cleverly. You see, my son, the way I have managed is thus: as soon as I was on the scent I stuck to my candidate like a leech; I drank brotherhood with him, and, nota bene, you must always pay the score. That costs a pretty penny, it is true, but never mind that. You must go further; introduce him to gaming-houses and brothels; entangle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... foot, not unskilfully, being a man full of strange and unexpected knowledge. As he worked at the task, watching them, I saw their eyes meet, saw too that rich flood of colour creep once more to Merapi's brow. Then I began to think it unseemly that the Prince of Egypt should play the leech to a woman's hurts, and to wonder why he had not left that humble task ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... them, was Sir Hans von Obernitz, the Schultheiss of Nuremberg. He was said to be a descendant of the ancient Brandenstein race, and yet—was the world topsy-turvy?—he, too, was listening to every word uttered by Wilibald Pirckheimer and Dr. Peutinger as if it were a revelation. The gray-haired leech and antiquary, Hartmann Schedel, whom Herr Wilibald,—spite of the gout which sometimes forced a slight grimace to distort his smooth-shaven, clever, almost over-plump face,—led by the arm like a careful son, resembled, with his long, silver locks, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 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 ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... smokers, but when he wrote it was "in universal use." The wonder is that with so many men smoking cigars the old domestic and club restrictions, as pilloried in Thackeray's pages, were maintained so long. In 1853 Leech had an admirably drawn sketch in Punch of paterfamilias, in the absence of his wife, giving a little dinner. Beside him sits his small son, and on either side of the table sit two of his cronies. One has a cigar in his hand and is blowing a cloud ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... to the rumbling of her discontent; he said: "Now, you quite understand. You'll stick to them like a leech. You won't give him any chance of talking to Mum alone. It's ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... however, no longer entertain a doubt. He had noted her long, low hull, with overhanging stern and high bow, the great length of her tapering yards, and the way her immense lateen sails stood; there was also a peculiar dark mark on the cloth next to the outer leech of her foresail, near the head of the yard, which was unmistakable, and when he could clearly see that her identity would be proved. As he now brought his glass again to bear on the speronara, he saw that as the Zodiac was brought on a wind, she was immediately hauled ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... only a termination to change. Ah! my dear fellow, you don't know what these provincial fortunes are, accumulated penny by penny, especially when to the passion for saving is added the incessant aspiration of that leech called commerce. We must make up our minds to some course; the bourgeoisie are rising round us like a flood; it is almost affable in them to buy our chateaus and estates when they might guillotine us as in 1793, and get them ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... not, and autographs were here in great numbers, presentation copies of Dickens' books, given to his friends, and autographs and portraits of his contemporaries, as well as the original sketches of illustrations to the various works by Seymour, "Phiz," Cruikshank, Stone, Leech, Barnard, and Pailthorpe, not forgetting a reference to the excellent work of our own Darley, and ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... a state of free will, madam. He is ill, or he is well, as he pleases. His case, young lady, exceeds my art to heal; and I take it Sir Henry Clinton is the best adviser he can apply to; though Major Dunwoodie has made the communication with his leech ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... introduced, by accident, one of the venomous vermicular sangsues which are now and then found in the neighboring ponds. This creature fastened itself upon a small artery in the right temple. Its close resemblance to the medicinal leech caused the mistake to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... 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 looked, and knew— ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... really hold in the flying International. He stalled off the attack 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 as he re-started his ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... rascal Maleotti confessed later, on being put to the question, that it was his master, Simone dei Bardi, who sent to Madonna Beatrice the casket containing the rose, and that the petals of the rose had been poisoned by a cunning leech that was in Messer Simone's service, for Messer Simone was sure that Beatrice would think it came from Dante, and Messer Simone was of a mind that if he could not have Beatrice no one else should have her. But when Simone heard from Maleotti of Dante's visit to the Portinari palace ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the King; low bowed the Prince, and felt His work was neither great nor wonderful, And past to Enid's tent; and thither came The King's own leech to look into his hurt; And Enid tended on him there; and there Her constant motion round him, and the breath Of her sweet tendance hovering over him, Filled all the genial courses of his blood With deeper and with ever deeper love, As the south-west that blowing Bala ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... measured the Scot with incredulous eyes, and replied, "Thou art no leech, I think, Sir Scot; I had as soon thought of your bringing ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... and saw it much stained with blood. "There, see how these infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood," said he, thrusting a foot out of the hammock. The vampire had tapped his great toe; there was a wound somewhat less than that made by a leech; the blood was still oozing from it. I conjectured he might have lost from ten to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... of Burns is, in its own humble way, as quietly beautiful, as simplex munditiis, as the scenes of Tell. No other has even approached them; though some gifted persons have attempted it. Mr. Wordsworth is no ordinary man; nor are his pedlars, and leech-gatherers, and dalesmen, without their attractions and their moral; but they sink into whining drivellers beside Roesselmann the Priest, Ulric the Smith, Hans of the Wall, and the other sturdy confederates ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... no superman: you are Anti-Man: you are to other men what the stoat is to the rabbit; and she is to you what the leech is to the stoat. You despise your father; but when he dies the world will be the richer because he lived. When you die, men will say, 'He was a great warrior; but it would have been better for the world if he had never been born.' And of Lua they will say nothing; but when they think ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... Iasus, was there, The best-beloved of Phoebus. Long ago Apollo, fired to see a youth so fair, His arts and gifts had offered to bestow, His augury, his lyre, his sounding bow. But he, in hope a bed-rid parent's days To lengthen, sought the leech's craft to know, The power of simples, and the silent praise Of healing arts, and scorned the great ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... is come at last, — For I have been the sport of steel, And hot life ebbeth from me fast, And I in saddle roll and reel, — Come bind me, bind me on my steed! Of fingering leech I have no need!" The chaplain clasped his mailed knee. "Nor need I more thy whine and thee! No time is left my sins to tell; But look ye bind me, bind me well!" They bound him strong with leathern thong, For the ride to ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled To bring man from the dead: the hand divine Did smite himself with ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... his nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of guitar and mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it change into the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from the leech of the bellying sail? All these sounds the spellbound listener seemed to hear, and with them the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, the soft thunder of the breaking wave, the cry of the protesting ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... 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 ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... shanks, and cracking crowns, that not a thief of all the sixty-one was left alive. Next morning, when Ubbe rode past and saw the sixty-one dead bodies, and heard what Havelok had done, he sent and brought both him and Goldborough to his own castle, and fetched a leech to tend his wounds, and would not hear of his going away; for, said he, "This man is better ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... with due respect,) nor my silver hair, or golden chain, that will fill up the void which Roland Graeme must needs leave in our Lady's leisure. There will be a learned young divine with some new doctrine—a learned leech with some new drug—a bold cavalier, who will not be refused the favour of wearing her colours at a running at the ring—a cunning harper that could harp the heart out of woman's breast, as they say Signer David ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... sleeve at this girl-teacher, sometimes hanging round her to fawn on her. But this made her dislike him more. He had a kind of leech-like power. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. 45 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 50 That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... nice ones at half a franc each, Or thirty centimes, if you will. Some tins, each with lids fitted tight as a leech, For you, with blest ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... 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 ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... this time. She had for 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

... fasten. Travellers are therefore always provided with little knives, cut from the bamboo, to loosen the hold of the insects, after which they rub the wound with a little chewed tobacco. But soon another leech, attracted by the flowing blood, takes the place of the one which was removed, and constant care is necessary to avoid being victimised by those little insects, of which the voracity far exceeds that of our ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... in clouds involv'd, and brews Th' extracted liquor with ambrosian dews, And odorous panacee. Unseen she stands, Temp'ring the mixture with her heav'nly hands, And pours it in a bowl, already crown'd With juice of med'c'nal herbs prepar'd to bathe the wound. The leech, unknowing of superior art Which aids the cure, with this foments the part; And in a moment ceas'd the raging smart. Stanch'd is the blood, and in the bottom stands: The steel, but scarcely touch'd with tender hands, Moves up, and follows of its own accord, And health and vigor are at once ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... the undeserving and the worthless—assure him, that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of Lucre, I will do anything, be anything—but the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... fair bargain should not have been made between Mollett and Sir Thomas,—made and kept on both sides, with mutual convenience. That doing of justice at the cost of falling heavens was not intelligible to her limited philosophy. Nor did she bethink herself, that a leech will not give over sucking until it be gorged with blood. Mr. Prendergast knew that such leeches as Mr. Mollett never leave the skin as long as there is a drop of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... more especially if she is fortunate, or rather unfortunate enough to have passengers. A certain class of men quit a vessel, in such a situation, with the reluctance that they would part with any other well established means of profit, creeping down her sides as lazily as the leech, filled to repletion, rolls from his bloody repast. The common seaman, with an attention divided by the orders of the pilot and the adieus of acquaintances, runs in every direction but the right one, and, perhaps at the only time in his life, seems ignorant of the uses of the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... he exercised the same imaginary power as over its inhabitants and their affairs. He had never been in it, the length of a piece of fat black water-pipe which trailed itself over the area-door into a damp stone passage, and had rather the air of a leech on the house that had 'taken' wonderfully; but this was no impediment to his arranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house with a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, and it cost his mind a world of trouble so to lay ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... pressed a key, and as he did so a sharp sting, hardly worse than a leech's bite, pricked Ronald Wyde's breast. A sense of languor crept slowly upon him, his feet tingled, his breath came slowly, and waves of light and shade pulsed in indistinct alternation before his sight; but through them the old ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... concerning old Isaac. And when in the afternoon he toddled away, and back into the forest, what wonder if I felt like Wordsworth after his talk with the old leech-gatherer?— ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... honor of the ship. They soon discovered that a new order of proceeding had been introduced. The masters and midshipmen perched themselves in the rigging, where they could see the movements of every seaman. The adult forward officers—Peaks, the boatswain, Bitts, the carpenter, and Leech, the sailmaker—also went aloft, and stationed themselves on the topmast-stays, so that, besides the lieutenants on deck, the commodore, and the past officers, there were three pairs of sharp eyes aloft to inspect the operations ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... up a tree again. I see I don't even know the A B C of this business. In the old days the leech was a physician. You don't mean I'm ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and, in a few moments, as is the custom of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... we give physicians, engraving on them talismanic figures, I would answer for the good effects of the experiment. Naude, indeed, has utterly ridiculed the occult virtues of talismans, in his defence of Virgil, accused of being a magician: the poet, it seems, cast into a well a talisman of a horse-leech, graven on a plate of gold, to drive away the great number of horse-leeches which infested Naples. Naude positively denies that talismans ever possessed any such occult virtues: Gaffarel regrets that so judicious a man as Naude should have gone this length, giving the lie to so many ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... remained on the Statute-book for twenty years, its repeal was a foregone conclusion. When it was revoked in 1871 the temper of the nation had changed, and no one was inclined to make even a passing protest. John Leech, in a cartoon in Punch, caught the droll aspect of the situation with even more than his customary skill. Lord John relished the joke, even though he recognised that it was not likely to prove of service to him at the next General Election. In conversation with a friend he said: 'Do you remember ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... haemorrhage. Bleeding with a quick, strong, and full pulse. The haemorrhages from the lungs, and from the nose, are the most frequent of these; but it sometimes happens, that a small artery but half divided, or the puncture of a leech, will continue to ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... for the purposes of a scorn that 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 as Punch in Leech's day ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... girl, what a future! The tender mercies of bar-maids are cruel. 'The daughter of the horse-leech'—he! he!—where did you get all those rings from?—I don't often quote Scripture, but I find it knows all about women. Cathro, you must watch the game for me: I have to see a party in the bar. Watch the game, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... sense of the possible dignity of common men and common things. His humour rioted in comparisons between potent personages and Jim Jett's brother or old Judge Brown's drunken coachman, for the reason for which the rarely jesting Wordsworth found a hero in the "Leech-Gatherer" or in Nelson and a villain in Napoleon or in Peter Bell. He could use and respect and pardon and overrule his far more accomplished ministers because he stood up to them with no more fear or cringing, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... apologetic shrug, by no means well pleased at being thus held responsible for all the stranger's moral and social vagaries. "It's the merest chance acquaintance. I know nothing of his antecedents. I—er—I lent him a bag, and he's fastened himself upon me ever since like a leech, and come constantly to my sister's. But I haven't the remotest idea who he is or where he hails from. He keeps his business wrapped up from all of us in ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... 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 ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... and we began to stretch our poor limbs which, besides being stiffened and benumbed by the horrors of the past night, and the thick dew that had fallen upon us, had also been an unconscious prey to leech and mosquito. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... man again. He had bathed his bruises and scratches in the burn, and Will o' Phawhope, who had skill as a leech, had set his arm and bound it to his side in splints of ash and raw hide. He had eaten grossly of flesh—the first time since the spring, and then it had only been braxy lamb. The ale had warmed his blood and quickened his ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... francs" (up to now), and "last year he made L20,000." Talk of the waters at various drinking or health-resorts abroad, why, their fame is as nothing compared with the unprecedented success of the WELLS of Monte Carlo. How the other chaps who lose must be like LEECH'S old gent "a cussin' and a swearin' like hanythink." So the two extremes at Monte Carlo may be expressed by the name of a well-known shopkeeping London ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various

... rueful doom is thine! distraught of soul, And all astray, and like some sorry leech Art thou, repining at thine own disease, Unskilled, unknowing of the ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... 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. Oh, ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... some explanation, she could not understand how it was she did not pull away the hand to which Ilyin was clinging like a leech, and why, like Ilyin, she hastily glanced to right and to left to see whether any one was looking. The clouds and the pines stood motionless, looking at them severely, like old ushers seeing mischief, but bribed not to tell ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... loves blood, and is provokingly ingenious in showing how necessary it is that you should submit calmly to have your throat cut for the good of society. M. Marat was a logician of this sort, and M. Romieu is, after all, only a pale imitator of the cracked horse-leech; but as he wrote in the interest of "order," and for the preservation of property, we rarely hear of his thirst for blood. Had he been a disciple of Marat, his words would have been quoted annually in every abode of civilized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the Plantago lanceolata successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as a styptic, and alluded ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... had appeared, Blest leech! to Phoebus'-self endeared Beyond all men below; On whom the fond, indulgent God His augury had fain bestowed, His lyre-his sounding bow! But he, the further to prolong A fellow creature's span, The humbler art of Medicine chose, The knowledge ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie



Words linked to "Leech" :   care for, horseleech, Hirudo medicinalis, class Hirudinea, practice of medicine, sponger, Hirudinea, annelid, follower, medicinal leech, treat, segmented worm, medicine, annelid worm



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