Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A large leech, as Hæmopsis sanguisorba or Aulastoma gulo.
  • noun A horse-doctor, veterinary surgeon, or farrier.
  • noun An inveterate beggar or dun; an extortionate person; one who makes incessant demands or drafts upon another.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A large blood-sucking leech (Hæmopsis vorax), of Europe and Northern Africa. It attacks the lips and mouths of horses.
  • noun A farrier; a veterinary surgeon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A veterinarian for horses.
  • noun A type of sucking worm, Haemopis sanguisuga, larger than the common leech.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of several large freshwater leeches

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Instruct me, some good horse-leech, to speak treason;

    The White Devil 2007

  • Instruct me, some good horse-leech, to speak treason;

    The White Devil 2007

  • There is not horse-leech that sticks so fast as your latter-day Philistine.

    Framley Parsonage 2004

  • And clings and pulls — a horse-leech, whose deep maw 190

    The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley 2003

  • That leaves vast stretches of territory without anyone that a sick or injured farmer can turn to - not an earth-witch, not a hedge-wizard, not even a horse-leech.

    Owlflight Lackey, Mercedes 1997

  • Apart from a broken nose, his skull was fractured in the fall, and for a couple of days he hung on the edge, with a Bristol horse-leech working like fury to save him from going over.

    Flash For Freedom Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1971

  • Apart from a broken nose, his skull was fractured in the fall, and for a couple of days he hung on the edge, with a Bristol horse-leech working like fury to save him from going over.

    Flash For Freedom Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1971

  • M. M.rat was a logician of this sort, and M. Romieu is, after all, only a pale imitator of the cracked horse-leech; but as he wrote in the interest of "order," and for the preservation of property, we rarely hear of his thirst for blood.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 18, April, 1859 Various

  • The Bey and his staff were legitimate descendants of the two daughters of the horse-leech; their daily cry was, "Give! give!"

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 Various

  • Are you like the horse-leech, ever crying, 'Give, give!' still wanting more profit, and never thinking you have enough?

    Fletcher of Madeley Brigadier Margaret Allen

Comments

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  • "'I was apprenticed to a horse-leech in Charleston when I was a boy.'"

    --O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 136

    This is an archaic (I hope) term for a veterinary surgeon or horse doctor.

    March 14, 2008