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Leech   /litʃ/   Listen
Leech

verb
(past & past part. leeched; pres. part. leeching)
1.
Draw blood.  Synonyms: bleed, phlebotomise, phlebotomize.



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"Leech" Quotes from Famous Books



... you mean our priests and spiritual writers, it is because they study it. We believe in the science of the soul; and we consult our spiritual guides for our soul's health, as the leech for our ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... 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 ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... keep from being hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for the little ship was bouncing back and forth so fast and so far that it was impossible to compare it with the motion of any other craft. Day began to dawn about 3 A.M. By the dim light I could make ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... son of Holy Church, His Most Christian Majesty, masquerading as the servant of a leech! Have a care, Master Leoni. You have a way of handling a lancet and letting your patients' blood. Recollect that kings have a way too of treating patients so that ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... were then again barred, and Cuthbert was carried up to a cell in the building, where the leech of the monastery speedily examined his wound, and pronounced, that although his life was not in danger by it, he was greatly weakened by the loss of blood, that the wound was a serious one, and that it would be some time before ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... she ran towards him, and tried to pull him away from the leech-like suckers. She snapped two of these tentacles, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Mehetabel, daughter of John Leech of Lea, died in 1816. She was doubtless a friend of Cobbett, who often rode by Lea, and greatly admired her father's trees. The first Mehetabel was the wife of the king of Edom, and the last, possibly, is the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... Dear old John Leech! What an eye he had for the man who hunts and doesn't like it! But for such, as a pictorial chronicler of the hunting field he would have had no fame. Briggs, I fancy, in his way did like it. Briggs was a full-blooded, ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... years, leech-like, Martin, sinking lower and lower all the time, continued his adhesion to the lawyer, abstracting continually, but in gradually diminishing sums, the money needed for natural life and sensual indulgence, until often his ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... its precautions so far that, quite till the Reformation, the art of healing (as Paracelsus declares) was chiefly in the hands of witches and public executioners. Torturers, chiefly clergymen such as Grillandus, were in great honour, while the healing leech was disreputable. It was not, as people say, "the age" which caused all this—it was the result of religion based on crucifixion and martyrdoms and pain—in fact, on that element of torture which we are elsewhere taught, most inconsistently, is ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... old palace gardens, to curio-shops and to little native eating-houses. The Barringtons submitted, not because they liked Tanaka, but because they were good-natured, and rather lost in this new country. Besides, Tanaka clung like a leech and was useful in ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... had so embarrassed myself, that my whole attention was engaged in contriving excuses, and raising small sums to quiet such as words would no longer mollify. It cost me eighty pounds in presents to Mr. Leech the attorney, for his forbearance of one hundred, which he solicited me to take when I had no need. I was perpetually harassed with importunate demands, and insulted by wretches, who a few months before would not have dared to raise their eyes from the dust before me. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... 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

... 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 mare round ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... entreated his guests right royally, and the land was full of friends and of strangers. He bade see to the sore wounded ones whose pride was brought low. To them that were skilled in leech craft they offered a rich fee of unweighed sliver and yellow gold, that they might heal the heroes of their wounds gotten in battle; the king sent also precious gifts to his guests. They that thought to ride home were bidden ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... I say, for Leech's sketch indisputably teaches That the mermaids of our beaches do not end in ugly tails, Nor have homes among the corals; but are shod with neat balmorals, An arrangement no one quarrels with, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... but something flitters under her flesh: Wynoc the leech must help us now. Go, run, Seek him, and come back quickly, and do not ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... we never missed 'er until it was time she was back, an' then we went all the way to Dugan's before we found out she hadn't been thar at all. Then her ma tuck up a quar notion, an' helt to it like a leech fer a long time. My hoss had got out o' the stable an' strayed off some'rs in the woods, an' Sally's mother firmly believed the gal had run off. I don't know why she 'lowed Sally would do sech ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... they were not entirely healed. It is bad policy to remove leeches forcibly in spite of the temptation to do so. The application of salt or tobacco juice makes them drop off, and the wounds are less severe, but few persons have the patience to wait after discovering a leech. The animal is not easily killed. The Dayaks always remove it with the sword edge and immediately ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... with a stick. The mystery was explained, and wherever one of them had been attached to the boy's tender skin, blood flowed freely for a few minutes, and then ceased. Even on one or two of the birds they found a leech adhering to the feathers where the poor thing's blood had followed the shot. Picking up the game, the two boys escorted the elated Sandy to the cabin, where his unexpected adventures made him ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... was enacted 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 letter-press. Douglas Jerrold treats of the woman's jealousy, Leech of her stays. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... bad associates always involve the spending of money freely. This consequence naturally occurred in the case of Sanford. To supply his wants his salary proved insufficient. These wants were like the horse-leech, and cried continually—"give, give." They could not be put off. The first recourse was that of borrowing, in anticipation of his quarterly receipt of salary, after his last payment was exhausted. It was not long before, under this system, his entire ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... had been conveyed to another chamber, the physician ordered restoratives and immediate bleeding;—but time did more than the leech's art; and the first wish he formed was, that he might once more wend his way to the Isle of Shepey, and gaze again, and for the last time, upon the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... on a time, hurt one of his legs, and it became seriously inflamed. Not knowing of his indisposition, I was on my way to visit him as usual, one summer evening, when I was much surprised by meeting a lively leech in Field-court, Gray's Inn, seemingly on his way to the West End of London. As the leech was alone, and was of course unable to explain his position, even if he had been inclined to do so (which he had not the appearance of being), I passed him and went on. Turning the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... all rank with rotting weeds, Close by the pines there at the highway side; No ripple on its green and stagnant tide, Where only cold and still the horse-leech breeds— Ugh! might not here ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... sails, buntlines across their fronts; clew-garnets and clewlines were tackles for clewing up the lower and the upper square sails respectively, jeers for hoisting the lower yards; lifts ran from the masthead to the yard-arms, leech lines to the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... 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, Cathro, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... 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 ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... I reported at Fulham. More hours of waiting. I discovered an old postman who had also enlisted in the R.A.M.C., and as he "knew the ropes" I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old recruiting sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a mob of civilians, through the London streets to the railway station. Although this was quite a short distance, the sergeant fell us out ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... already "himself in bonds under Philistian yoke." Alas, alas, it is very hard to break asunder the bonds of the latter-day Philistines. When a Samson does now and then pull a temple down about their ears, is he not sure to be engulfed in the ruin with them? There is no horse-leech that sticks so fast ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... pharmacy, apothecary, druggist, chemist. Hotel des Invalides; sanatorium, spa, pump room, well; hospice; Red Cross. doctor, physician, surgeon; medical practitioner, general practitioner, specialist ; medical attendant, apothecary, druggist; leech; osteopath, osteopathist[obs3]; optometrist, ophthalmologist; internist, oncologist, gastroenterologist; epidemiologist[Med], public health specialist; dermatologist; podiatrist; witch doctor, shaman, faith healer, quack, exorcist; Aesculapius[obs3], Hippocrates, Galen; accoucheur[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... being a man of determination, stuck to his text like a horse-leech; so, after a great to-do, and considerable argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of powerful persuasion, to give him my hand on the subject. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the back-loan ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... Shooba cur'd me of a pestilent Fever, with Simples, when I was a little Child, and our Leech had given me Over, nor did he Bleed me once. Now Shooba's Back was Bleeding, and I might not ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... 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

... accumulated knowledge, and had every thing that we need both for mind and body ready made at our hands. But not so. He has made all that is grand in life, that is glorious in thought, depend upon our own exertions. This is as true of women as of men. Then the idler is a leech on himself—his own despoiler. An idle woman is as base a thing as an idle man. She was made for usefulness. A drone in any hive is a base bee—a nuisance, a ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... let the leech essay To pour the light on Allan's eyes:" His sand is done,—his race is run; Oh! never more ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... distance of twenty miles, and are poured into Lake Winnibigoshish. The latter has an area of eighty square miles; it is twice the size of Cass Lake and more than six times that of Lake Itaska. From Lake Winnibigoshish to the point where it receives the discharge of Leech Lake, the river flows through an open savannah, from a quarter of a mile to a mile in width. Forty miles beyond are Pokegama Falls. Here the river flows from Pokegama Lake, falling about fourteen feet before quiet water is reached. All the country ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... little was heard of him. He read in chambers, drew pleadings and indictments, and gathered many useful tricks from the criminal advocate to whom he attached himself like a leech. During this period he also made the acquaintance of a Solicitor who had retired from the noon-day glare of professional rectitude to the congenial atmosphere of shady cases. He also struck up a friendship with two or three struggling journalists, who were occupied in hanging on to the paragraphic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various

... for medical purposes is called the hirudo medicinalis to distinguish it from other varieties, such as the horse-leech and the Lisbon leech. It varies from two to four inches in length, and is of a blackish brown colour, marked on the back with six yellow spots, and edged with a yellow line on each side. Formerly leeches were supplied by Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and other ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... and Work (BENTLEY) Mr. FRITH quotes from an anonymous but obviously not an original authority, the dictum, "It is the happiness of such a life (as LEECH's) that there is so little to be told of it." Mr. BENTLEY has produced two handsome volumes worthy the reputation of his ancient and honourable house. They enshrine admirable reproductions of some of LEECH's best work, selected by the trained hand and sympathetic eye of Mr. FRITH. These are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various

... The mellow blackbird's 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; ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... Latin - lade, from "two schooles, famous both for eloquence and learning", which existed there anterior to the Conquest. But, on the report of his "worthy friend Dr. Peter Heylin," he afterwards stated in his Worthies that "Cricklade was the place for the professors of Greek; Lechlade for physick (Leech being an old English word for a physitian), and Latton, a small village hard by, the place where Latin was professed." It will be seen by the next sentence that Aubrey disputes even the amended theory of Fuller, and, with ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... and what if your father should die in the meanwhile? Perhaps he knows better how deep his hurts are than does this leech. If so, you would have a sore heart for all your life. Sure you had better go, or at the least ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... you feel, 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 chances ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... what he writes is extempore wit, and written currente calamo. But I doubt not to shew, that though he would be thought to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels, yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the blood of other men, drawn from the gums; and, when he is rubbed with salt, spews it ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... It's a tricky place. I shall never forget the look of relief on that old fellow's face at sight of me. I believe he thinks to this day that I saved his life. He stuck to me like a leech all the way through the further caves and till we got ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... dare 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 and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

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

... absolutely at the end of his resources. To-morrow he would not especially need that dime. He had a job. He would begin to draw pay. In his own phrasing he would "buy him a square meal and rent him a room somewhere." Upon these two prospects his brain fastened with a leech-like persistency. And yet above anything he had faced in his life he dreaded the job and the room. The inspiration of his flight, the impulse that had sped him out of Millings like a fire-tipped arrow, that determination to find Sheila, to rehabilitate ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... Ste. Marie, to visit the Indians of the Northwest, and, when advisable, to make treaties with them. They had a guard of soldiers, a physician, an interpreter, and the Rev. William T. Boutwell, a missionary at Leech Lake. They were supplied with a large outfit of provisions, tobacco and trinkets, which were conveyed in a bateau. They travelled in several large bark canoes. They went to Fond du Lac, thence up the St. Louis river, portaged ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... it took holt like a leech in half a dozen places. I jumped; but I didn't jump far. There was two o' the things had me, and that left leg o' mine was fast as a duck's foot in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... 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 ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... 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 that I might, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... have robbed and wrecked. The government should suppress these eminently respectable gambling games. They have caused more sorrow, destitution and crime than all the cards and dice this side of the dark dominion of the devil. The horse-leech's daughters should be pulled off the body politic. Not only should the government suppress these shameless skin games which collect gold and distribute copper, but it should supply life insurance to heads of families at cost and make it compulsory. It should ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... a list of goods. Open it now and you will find that under it my possessions pass to you and your heirs absolutely as my executors, for such especial trusts and purposes as are set out therein. Elsa has been ailing, and it is known that the leech has ordered her a change. Therefore her journey to Leyden will excite no wonder, neither, or so I hope, will even Ramiro guess that I should enclose a letter such as this in so frail a casket. Still, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... law of the land's a good doctor; but, bad luck to those that gorge upon such a fine physician's poor patients! Sure, we know, now and then, it's mighty wholesome to bleed; but nobody falls in love with the leech. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... torturing your father-in-law—well, that's your look out. As for me, if only I can unmask a downright lie, I am quite content to look death itself between the eyes immediately after. Ever since you fainted at the prick of a leech, and were not ashamed to burst into tears when I cut out one of your warts, I knew you to be a coward. Yes, a coward you are, and a very poor creature to boot; but whatever else I am, I am not that. Twice have I broken the bone of my own leg because it was improperly set, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... said the inexorable leech; "I know what the wily brute means. He would rather die, and make you the loser, than be branded and ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... the question; we therefore remained where we were, and I set Jan and 'Ngulubi to look after the oxen and see that they came to no harm, while Piet, 'Mfuni, and I devoted ourselves to the task of looking after the invalid, though, goodness knows, our ignorance of everything connected with the leech's art was so complete that we could do nothing more than pour into her all the nourishment that she could be persuaded ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... a square sail which is secured to the yard is the "head," the lower part is the "foot," the outer edge is the "leech," the two lower corners are the "clews," the middle of the sail when furled is the "bunt." The "sheet" pulls the sail out to its full extent down to the yard below, the clewlines and buntlines bring it up under ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... wild apple-tree; a canker rose, a wild rose; dog rose, dog-violet, horse leech, horse chestnut. In all these cases the prefix ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various

... like a leech to the skirts of the Church," said Piers irreverently. "There are plenty of her sort about—wherever there are parsons, in fact. Of course it's the parsons' fault. If they didn't encourage 'em they ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... forth in a very attractive manner, with illustrations by John Leech, who was the first artist to make these characters live, and his drawings were ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... (if leech or lancet can furnish us with the precise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party at present assembled. Miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-hand bookseller who knew the insides of books, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... for four Spanish dollars I became the proud possessor of a 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 it ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Among 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 ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... take the trouble to glance back, will not fail to see, that although in appearance digressive, it is a strict and accurate comment on Charles Keene, and the circumstances in which his art was produced. Charles Keene never sought after originality; on the contrary, he began by humbly imitating John Leech, the inventor of the method. His earliest drawings (few if any of them are exhibited in the present collection) were hardly distinguishable from Leech's. He continued the tradition humbly, and originality stole upon him unawares. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... evening they saw muskrats in the eddies, and once they glimpsed a black, shiny something like a monstrous leech rolling up and down as it travelled in the stream. Quonab whispered, "Otter," and made ready his gun, but it dived and showed itself no more. At one of the camps they were awakened by an extraordinary tattoo ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... 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 all, we ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... 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

... this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in hand—Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat and which you may slice and deliver to your friends; and to which, having cut it, you may come again ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray

... dangerous classes? They live, they do not starve; they live on honest people. Judges, police, and jailers are fed by those who never trouble them. Crime is like a leech on the body, it will have blood. The wrongdoers are not the thorn hedge which we need for our protection, but the thistle, which has rare powers of reproduction, and uses the wind as its chariot to ride to other lands. Is it any wonder that wickedness is so difficult to eradicate? ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... doors of the lost world and show the damned. That one Edenic transgression stretched chords of misery across the heart of the world and struck them with dolorous wailing, and it has seated the plagues upon the air and the shipwrecks upon the tempest, and fastened like a leech famine to the heart of the sick and dying nations. Beautiful at the start, horrible at the last. Oh, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... lad, I too have known that wish," said John. "Doubtless it was some grave inflammation of the hidden tissues of the body from the which you so grievously suffered. And how came it that our uncle found you out? He is a notable leech, as many men have found ere now. Was it as such that he then came ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... cried Yspaddaden; 'the iron pains me like the bite of a horse-leech. Cursed be the hearth whereon it was heated, and ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... 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 says a plain word when she finds her ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... 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, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... too, stood by the pumps, and Dr Nettleby, with Mr Macgilpin and Mr Leech, the two assistant-surgeons, had all the contents of their surgical cases—most murderous-looking instruments they were, too—spread out on the wardroom and gunroom tables, as well as plenty of lint and bandages for dressing; while Corporal Macan, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... any hands that had gathered them nefariously. So far as she looked into the future she saw there always Cuckoo, and herself robbing Cuckoo comfortably, faithfully, unblamed and unrepentant, while the years rolled along, the leech ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... The five first-named bands number in the aggregate about six thousand four hundred and fifty-five souls, and occupy, or rather it is intended they shall ultimately occupy, ample reservations in the central and northern portion of the State, known as the White Earth, Leech Lake, and Red Lake reservations, containing altogether about 4,672,000 acres, a portion of which is very ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... never subdue their minds to follow any alien example; nor let a foreign city of fire be their beacon. Watching over his Italy; her wrist in his meditative clasp year by year; he stood like a mystic leech by the couch of a fair and hopeless frame, pledged to revive it by the inspired assurance, shared by none, that life had not forsaken it. A body given over to death and vultures-he stood by it in the desert. Is it a marvel to you that when the carrion-wings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... replied her mother, "don't allow that thought to gain upon you. We'll get a fairy-man or a fairy-woman, because they know the best remedies against everything of that kind, when a common leech ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... 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 save his ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... before more blood stain the pages of our present history, before we exasperate and arouse bitter animosities, let us try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once and for all the land laws, which in their iniquitous operation have ruined her peasantry. Sweep away the leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and has given her back no word even of comfort in her degradation. Turn her barracks into flax mills, encourage a spirit of independence in her citizens, restore to her people the protection of the law, so that they may speak without fear of arrest, and ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... in Paris at the time—we came across one another twice. He heard the scandal, and put two and two together. I shipped him off to Australia when I came into the title. He has come back. Lately, I can tell you, he has pretty well drained me dry. He has become a regular parasite a cold-blooded leech. He doesn't get drunk now. He looks after his health. I believe he even saves his, money. There's scarcely a week I don't hear from him. He keeps me a pauper. He has brought me at last to that state when I feel that there must ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... father's dead face, which I had seen when I was young, that made me pity him? I laid my hand upon his heart, and felt it beating feebly; so I lifted him up gently, and carried him towards a heap of straw that he seemed used to lie upon; there I stripped him and looked to his wounds, and used leech-craft, the memory of which God gave me for this purpose, I suppose, and within seven days I found that ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris

... draw, I can't do anything. I'm poor as a church mouse." He laughed, bitterly and rather too loud. "I've become a damn beggar, a leech on my friends. I'm a failure. I'm ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... 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 ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... slacken his speed in order not to hurt her. He tried to shake her off, untwist her hands; she clung to him like a leech. Then he stopped short, panting. She could see the sweat dropping from his forehead; his teeth began to chatter. She still held his arm tightly with ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... 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 him ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... than of yore, The ancient "Black mouth's" knelt before. And Robert Sheriff, stately man, Who the Crown Timber Office "ran"— To use a well worn Yankee phrase Unknown in Bytown's early days. And A.J. Christie, what shall I Say of this old celebrity? An M.D. of exceeding skill Who dealt in lancet, leech and pill, Cantharides and laudanum, too, When milder measures would not do; A polished scholar and a sage, A thinker far before his age, A writer of sarcastic vein And philosophic depth, who's train Of thought was comprehensive, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... man 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 man's eyes peered into his, like a dream. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... added, 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 its general ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... John Leech, it is said, was actually driven from house to house in a vain effort to escape the nuisance of organ-grinders, whom he has immortalized in Punch by many exquisite sketches, showing that they know "the vally of peace and quietness." Some of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... worried look of unsatisfied craving; there is hunger in all the restless, eager eyes, and the thin, impatient lips work nervously, as if scarcely able to repress the cry which the children of the horse-leech have uttered since the beginning of time. It is easy to understand this, when you remember that, at such a season, there gathers here, besides the legion of politicians and partisans, and the mighty army of contractors, a vaster host of persons interested in the private bills submitted ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... one 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,' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... the ear to the nearest church and marry him," Lucille would reply; or—"Stick to him like a leech for evermore, Auntie"; or—"Marry him when he isn't looking, or while he's asleep, if he's ill—or by the scruff of his ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... have you sucking me like a leech all my life?" cried Daireh in a shrill voice, stamping ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... 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 of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... began to search his wounds, for in those days, so far as God suffered the sun to shine might no man find one so skilled in leech-craft, for that man whom he took in his care, were the life but left in him, would neither lack healing nor ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... he could, 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, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... cry of 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 need, and noble enough to deserve, shall also be fortunate enough ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... 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 ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... aside once more, and knelt down by the squire and raised his head, and laid the blood-stauncher to his mouth and his heart, and muttered words over him, while Birdalone looked over her shoulder with her pale face; then the she-leech fetched water from the stream in a cup which she drew from her wallet, and she washed his face, and he came somewhat to himself, so that she might give him drink of the water; and yet more he came to himself. So then she ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... interesting book I think that the impression left on the mind of the reader in regard to the circumstances under which it was written, will be clearer, if I cite the following description by the editor:—"Here," he says, "a leech calmly sits down to compose a not unlearned book, treating of many serious diseases, assigning for them something he hopes will cure them.... The author almost always rejects the Greek recipes, and doctors as an herborist.... ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke



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



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