- to cause (a liquid) to filter down through some material
- to subject to the washing action of a filtering liquid: wood ashes are leached to extract lye
- to extract (a soluble substance) from some material by causing water to filter down through the material: lye is leached from wood ashes
Origin of leachprobably ; from Old English leccan, to water, irrigate, origin, originally a causative form of base akin to Old Norse leka: see leak
- to lose soluble matter as a result of the filtering through of water: soil that has leached badly
- to dissolve and be washed away
- the action of leaching
- a sievelike container used in leaching
verbleached, leach·ing, leach·es
- To remove soluble or other constituents from by the action of a percolating liquid: heavy rains that leached the soil of minerals.
- To empty; drain: “a world leached of pleasure, voided of meaning” (Marilynne Robinson).
- The act or process of leaching.
- A porous, perforated, or sievelike vessel that holds material to be leached.
- The substance through which a liquid is leached.
Origin of leachFrom Middle English leche, leachate, from Old English *lece, muddy stream; akin to leccan, to moisten.
(third-person singular simple present leaches, present participle leaching, simple past and past participle leached)
Do not confuse this verb with the verb leech.
From Middle English leche (“leachate"), from Old English *lÇ£Ä‹, *lÇ£Ä‹e (“muddy stream"), from Proto-Germanic *lÄ“kijÅ (“a leak, drain, flow"), from Proto-Germanic *lÄ“k-, *lak-, *likanÄ… (“to leak, drain"), from Proto-Indo-European *leg(')- (“to leak"). Cognate with Old English leÄ‹Ä‹an (“to water, moisten"), Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond"). More at leak, lake.
leach - Computer Definition
A derogatory term in the warez underground community that refers to self-serving individuals who download an abundance of information for free but never give back to the community.
Following the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 and particularly since 2004, violators of copyright law have been taken to court by the recording industry for infringement of the Act—a form of leaching. Many of those targeted by the recording industry included U.S. students who downloaded music from Napster and shared files with their friends for free, depriving the recording artists of their royalties and failing to give back to the entertainment community. The courts generally made each of the student violators pay thousands of dollars in damages.
Graham, R. Hacking Lexicon. [Online, 2001.] Robert Graham Website. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/resource_files/documentation/hacking-dict.html.