leach

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To remove soluble or other constituents from by the action of a percolating liquid.
• intransitive verb To empty; drain.
• intransitive verb To be dissolved or passed out by a percolating liquid.
• noun The act or process of leaching.
• noun A porous, perforated, or sievelike vessel that holds material to be leached.
• noun The substance through which a liquid is leached.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun See leech.
• noun Same as latch.
• To extract metal from (an ore) by subjecting it to chemical reagents which take the metal into solution.
• noun A dish, of various kinds, served up in slices. It was sometimes a jelly flavored with spices.
• noun A tank in which hot water is passed through ground bark to obtain tannin. Also latch.
• See leech.
• To wash or drain by percolation of water; treat by downward drainage: as, to make lye by leaching ashes (the most familiar use of the word); the rains leach a gravelly soil.
• To remove by percolation; drain away: as, to leach the alkali from wood-ashes.
• noun A separation of lye, or alkali in solution, as from wood-ashes, by percolation of water.
• noun The material used for leaching, as wood-ashes.—3. A deep tub with a spigot inserted in the bottom, used in making potash. It holds from 6 to 8 bushels of wood-ashes.
• To cut into slices; slice.
• noun Same as leash.

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

• noun (Naut.) See 3d leech.
• transitive verb To remove the soluble constituents from by subjecting to the action of percolating water or other liquid.
• transitive verb To dissolve out; -- often used with out.
• noun A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
• noun A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
• noun a wooden tub in which ashes are leached.
• intransitive verb To part with soluble constituents by percolation.
• noun obsolete See leech, a physician.

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

• noun A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
• noun A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
• noun nautical Alternative spelling of leech.
• verb transitive To purge a soluble matter out of something by the action of a percolating fluid.

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

• verb cause (a liquid) to leach or percolate
• verb permeate or penetrate gradually
• noun the process of leaching
• verb remove substances from by a percolating liquid