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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 rope, that part of the boltrope to which the side of a sail is sewed.

The art of healing; skill of a physician. [Archaic] Chaucer.

One who heals disease of cows; a cow doctor.

Healing the distemper of cows.

A large blood-sucking leech (Hæmopsis vorax), of Europe and Northern Africa. It attacks the lips and mouths of horses.

The business of a farrier; especially, the art of curing the diseases of horses.

An extinct order of sea urchins found in the Paleozoic rocks. They had more than twenty vertical rows of plates. Called also Palæechini. [Written also Palæechinoidea.]

The large posterior sucker of the leeches.

ncluding the Oligochæta or earthworms and Polychæta or marine worms; and the Hirudinea or leeches. See Chætopoda.

y equivalent to Annelida, including the marine annelids, earthworms, Gephyrea, Gymnotoma, leeches, etc. See Annelida.

A group of worms without appendages, as the leech.

The order of Annulata which includes the leeches. See Hirudinea.

An order of Nemertina, including the large leechlike worms (Malacobdella) often parasitic in clams.

or process of letting blood or bleeding, as by opening a vein or artery, or by cupping or leeches; -- esp. applied to venesection.

Any animal that sucks blood; esp., the leech (Hirudo medicinalis), and related species.

A rope fastened near the middle of the leech or perpendicular edge of the square sails, by subordinate ropes, called bridles, and used to keep the weather edge of the sail tight forward, when the ship is closehauled. Bowline bridles, the ropes by which the bowline is fastened to the leech of the sail. -- Bowline knot.…

Ropes passing through pulleys, and used to haul in or up the leeches, bottoms, or corners of sails, preparatory to furling.

A genus of freshwater leeches, furnished with a proboscis. They feed upon mollusks and worms.

The egg cases of mucus, etc., made by leeches and other worms.

To fix one's self; to take firm hold; to clinch; to cling. A horse leech will hardly fasten on a fish. Sir T. Browne.