Leech

Word/Compound	Meaning
Leech	(Naut.) The border or edge at the side of a sail. (Written also: leach) Leech line, a line attached to the leech ropes of sails, passing up through blocks on the yards, to haul the leeches by. –Totten.
Leech	A physician or surgeon; a professor of the art of healing. (Written also leach.)
Leech	A glass tube of peculiar construction, adapted for drawing blood from a scarified part by means of a vacuum.
Leech	Bloodsucking worm: 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.
Leech rope	that part of the boltrope to which the side of a sail is sewed.
Horse leech	a less powerful European leech (H[ae]mopis vorax), commonly attacking the membrane that lines the inside of the mouth and nostrils of animals that drink at pools where it lives.