letch

English

Alternative forms

• lech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɛt͡ʃ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

Etymology 1

See lech, lecher.

Noun

letch (plural letches)

1. (archaic) Strong desire; passion.
   • 1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley (review)

     Some people have a letch for unmasking impostors, or for avenging the wrongs of others.

2. (informal) A lecher.

Verb

letch (third-person singular simple present letches, present participle letching, simple past and past participle letched)

1. Alternative form of lech (“to behave lecherously”)

Etymology 2

From Middle English leche, for example Sandy's Letch located east of Annitsford in North Tyneside.

Noun

letch (plural letches)

1. A stream or pool in boggy land.

Etymology 3

Noun

letch (plural letches)

1. Alternative form of leach

Verb

letch (third-person singular simple present letches, present participle letching, simple past and past participle letched)

1. Alternative form of leach

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “letch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English leche (“an infusion”).

Noun

letch

1. small beer
   • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY:

     Ty o' letch.

     A drink of small beer.

References

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 53