horseleech

horse·leech

(hôrs′lēch′)

Any of several large leeches of the genus Haemopis.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

horseleech

(ˈhɔːsˌliːtʃ)

1. (Animals) any of several large carnivorous freshwater leeches of the genus Haemopis, esp H. sanguisuga

2. (Veterinary Science) an archaic name for a veterinary surgeon

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Noun

horseleech - any of several large freshwater leeches

bloodsucker, hirudinean, leech - carnivorous or bloodsucking aquatic or terrestrial worms typically having a sucker at each end

genus Haemopis, Haemopis - leeches

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References in periodicals archive ?

He says that the Southerner is 'as bloodthirsty as a horseleech', (86) and when speaking about himself at the end of the play, he says, 'I ruther think I feel about as lively as a stump'd tail'd bull in fly time'.

Nineteenth-century travel accounts of America and Bayle Bernard's 'the Yankee Pedlar'

Beyond all the metaphors that have passed into our speech--all the ponytails and tantivies, the horsebeans, horseleeches, and horselaughs, beyond all the junkies shooting white horse and all the cutpurses hung from the mare foaled of an acorn--beyond that there is, most excellent of all, the terminology, the words we have evolved in order to live in such close association with these beings for such a long time, to be able to talk about them and what they do: piebald and roan, withers and farrier, crupper and martingale.