medicinal leech

1. 1.

   large European freshwater leech formerly used for bloodletting

   SynonymsHirudo medicinalis

   Broaderleech

   Part ofHirudo

Questions about medicinal leech

What does medicinal leech mean?

medicinal leech means "large European freshwater leech formerly used for bloodletting".

What is another word for medicinal leech?

Close synonyms include Hirudo medicinalis. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is medicinal leech a common word?

medicinal leech is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.