leach.
A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
Meaning & usage
A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
Alternative spelling of leech.
A jelly-like sweetmeat popular in the fifteenth century.
Where this word comes from
From 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.
To 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.
To part with soluble constituents by percolation.
The gangue was leached to recover minerals left behind by the original technology.
To bleed; to seep.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English *lechen, *lecchen, from Old English leċċan, from Proto-Germanic *lakjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to leak”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.