/liːt͡ʃ/
OriginFrom Middle English leche (“leachate; sluggish stream”), from Old English *lǣċ, *lǣċe (“muddy stream”), from Proto-Germanic *lēkijō (“a leak, drain, flow”)
(compare Proto-Germanic *lekaną (“to leak, drain”)), from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to leak”).
Cognate with Old English leċċan (“to water, moisten”), Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond”). More at leak, lake.
- A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
- A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
“"This is the leach," said Kitty, pointing to a large, yellowish, upright wooden cylinder, which rested on some slanting boards, down the surface of which ran a brownish liquid that dripped into a trou”
- A jelly-like sweetmeat popular in the fifteenth century.
- transitiveTo purge a soluble matter out of something by the action of a percolating fluid.
“Heavy rainfall can leach out minerals important for plant growth from the soil.”
“[T]he very wet winter will have washed much of the goodness out of the soil. Homemade compost and the load of manure we get from a friendly farmer may not be enough to compensate for what has leached ”
- intransitiveTo part with soluble constituents by percolation.
“The gangue was leached to recover minerals left behind by the original technology.”
- figuratively, intransitiveTo bleed; to seep.
“A more generic geography, one where the suburb uneasily abuts the commercial and industrial, or leaches out to a nonurban frontier.”
“There's a second half to each video. He remembers now. He watched it passively, over and over, and never saw it. Something comes through. It's been leaching into the background of the world this whole”
- countable, uncountableA surname from Old English.
- countable, uncountableA census-designated place in Delaware County, Oklahoma, United States.
- countable, uncountableAn unincorporated community in Carroll County, Tennessee, United States.
- countable, uncountableA river in Gloucestershire, with a short stretch in Oxfordshire, England, which joins the Thames at Lechlade; in full, the River Leach.
Formsleaches(plural) · leaches(present, singular, third-person) · leaching(participle, present) · leached(participle, past) · leached(past) · Leaches(plural) · Latch(alternative) · Leech(alternative) · Leetch(alternative) · Leitch(alternative) · Litch(alternative) · Lytch(alternative)
Source: Wiktionary