英语词汇leech的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

leech; leechcraft. Leechcraft was the Anglo-Saxon word for the practice of medicine. Only a relatively few doctors are leeches today, but in Anglo-Saxon times doctors were called leeches, the term probably deriving from an Old English word meaning “to heal.” One theory holds that the bloodthirsty worms called leeches were named after the doctors called leeches, because the doctors so often employed the worms in trying to cure people. A second theory has it that the blood- sucking worm’s name derives from another similar Old English word that was confused with the Old English word for doctor and was eventually pronounced and spelled the same. To leech began to be used figuratively in the late 18th century, meaning “to cling to and feed upon and drain” (the way the worm does), a leech becoming a person who does this. In the 19th century to stick to someone (or something) like a leech became proverbial and Tennyson wrote of a world swarming with literary leeches. Those famous leeches that were all over Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen (1951) were only rubber and were stuck to Bogart with waterproof glue. Each “leech” contained a small “blood sac” that broke when peeled off.

词汇	leech
词源	leech; leechcraft. Leechcraft was the Anglo-Saxon word for the practice of medicine. Only a relatively few doctors are leeches today, but in Anglo-Saxon times doctors were called leeches, the term probably deriving from an Old English word meaning “to heal.” One theory holds that the bloodthirsty worms called leeches were named after the doctors called leeches, because the doctors so often employed the worms in trying to cure people. A second theory has it that the blood- sucking worm’s name derives from another similar Old English word that was confused with the Old English word for doctor and was eventually pronounced and spelled the same. To leech began to be used figuratively in the late 18th century, meaning “to cling to and feed upon and drain” (the way the worm does), a leech becoming a person who does this. In the 19th century to stick to someone (or something) like a leech became proverbial and Tennyson wrote of a world swarming with literary leeches. Those famous leeches that were all over Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen (1951) were only rubber and were stuck to Bogart with waterproof glue. Each “leech” contained a small “blood sac” that broke when peeled off.
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